Electricity Market Design and Renewable Energy Sources

Dear Colleagues,

The continuous growth and integration of renewable energy sources (RESs), such as wind and solar photovoltaic power, in contemporary electrical grids has posed significant challenges in the design and operation of electricity markets and networks. Conventional market structures, initially designed around dispatchable centralised power generation, require re-evaluation and adaption to accommodate the variability, distributed generation, and inherent stochastic production of RESs.

The recent example of the massive blackout in the Iberian peninsula, seemingly caused by grid instability due to a high-RES / low-thermal contribution to the electricity mix, demonstrated the significance of a dynamic market design that, among others, enables hybrid generation–storage systems, and promotes incentives for storage and/or synchronous reserve capacity.

This Special Issue aims to explore innovative approaches to electricity market design, which would facilitate the implementation of high shares of RESs in the electricity grids, while ensuring stability, reliability, and financial benefits for the producers, consumers, and prosumers.  We welcome original research and review articles that address theoretical, practical, simulated, and policy-related aspects in the context of the transition to RES-based power generation.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Market designs and pricing mechanisms for RES integration/grid stability.
• Flexibility markets and demand response.
• Capacity mechanisms and adequacy under high-RES penetration.
• Strategies to reduce or manage renewable energy curtailment (e.g., hybrid systems and flexible demand).
• Dynamic pricing and negative wholesale prices.
• Ancillary services and balancing market design.
• Locational marginal pricing and network constraints.
• Energy storage and its role in market design.
• Distributed energy resources and peer-to-peer trading.
• Role of cross-border interconnections in market integration, balancing, and resilience.
• Policy frameworks and regulatory reforms.
• Case studies of market evolution in high-RES regions (e.g., Iberian blackout).

We look forward to your valuable contributions to this critical area of research towards sustainability.

Dr. Dimitrios Apostolou
Guest Editor

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