Modeling Electricity Markets and Energy Systems: Challenges and Opportunities Ahead

Dear Colleagues,

Not long ago, electricity markets were predominantly occupied by conventional power plants that produce electricity by burning fossil fuels. As the insidious ecological consequences of global warming became evident, governments worldwide decided to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Nowadays, renewable energy technologies are changing the outlook of the climate crisis. Policymakers all over the globe support these technologies through various instruments (e.g., levies and tariffs) to decarbonize the power sector. Energy system models also harmoniously predict a higher deployment of renewable technologies in the forthcoming decades as they increasingly become affordable.

Unfortunately, the intermittency of these renewable sources (when deployed in large quantities) can introduce instability to the power grid, thereby causing tremendous challenges for system operators to sustain the electricity supply and demand balance. The imbalance between supply and demand can incite blackouts if operators foresee no contingency plan to dampen these fluctuations. Furthermore, the variability of renewables can raise the cost of electricity, which can directly impact future capacity expansion investment decisions. Therefore, the long-term effects of the variability in the power market models should be manifested in energy system models that optimize long-term investments.  

One way to overcome this issue is to incorporate new technologies and pathways to satisfy energy service demands. We have alternative energy vectors (e.g., hydrogen, ammonia) in the arsenal that can assist us in transferring energy through spatial and temporal boundaries and introduce flexibility to a carbon-neutral power sector. Although these technologies are analyzed extensively in energy system models, their roles in the future electricity grid are being overlooked. This shortcoming is due to the fact that energy system models have lower temporal and spatial resolution than power market models; therefore, underlying models can encompass higher technological explicitness to study the interplay between other energy vectors and renewables. The borderland separating the power market and energy system models is vanishing as computing power proliferates at a considerable rate, which enables the next generation of energy system models to consider operational complexity with high temporal and spatial detail.

The demand for disseminating knowledge in the open access mode regarding the latest advancements in energy systems and power markets modeling has persuaded us to create a Special Issue in the Energies journal. Experts are invited to share their latest findings in the form of original research papers, reviews, and successful case studies. The works presented in this Special Issue should concern the latest developments in energy systems and power market modeling; the coupling of energy systems and electricity market models; improving the spatial, temporal, and technological resolution of energy system models; visualizing complex energy system models; and studying the behavior of stakeholders in energy systems and electricity markets.

Dr. Danial Esmaeili Aliabadi
Dr. Tiago Pinto
Guest Editors

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