Search Results (79)

In the Italian intra-day electricity market (MI-XBID), where energy positions can be adjusted up to one hour before delivery, imbalance charges due to forecast errors from non-programmable renewable sources represent a critical issue. This work focuses on photovoltaic (PV) systems, whose production variability makes them particularly sensitive to forecast accuracy. To address these challenges, a comprehensive methodology for assessing and mitigating imbalance penalties by integrating a short-term PV forecasting model with a battery energy storage system is proposed. Unlike conventional approaches that focus exclusively on improving statistical accuracy, this study emphasizes the economic and regulatory impact of forecast errors under the current Italian imbalance settlement framework. A hybrid physical-artificial neural network is developed to forecast PV power one hour in advance, combining historical production data and clear-sky irradiance estimates. The resulting imbalances are analyzed using regulatory tolerance thresholds. Simulation results show that, by adopting a control strategy aimed at maintaining the battery’s state of charge around 50%, imbalance penalties can be completely eliminated using a storage system sized for just over 2 equivalent hours of storage capacity. The methodology provides a practical tool for market participants to quantify the benefits of storage integration and can be generalized to other electricity markets where tolerance bands for imbalances are applied. Full article

Recent European regulations promote distributed energy resources as alternatives to centralized generation. This study compares utility-scale and distributed photovoltaic (PV) systems coupled with Battery Energy-Storage Systems (BESSs) in the Italian electricity market, analyzing different battery sizes. A multistage stochastic mixed-integer linear programming model, using Monte Carlo PV production scenarios, optimizes day-ahead and intra-day market offers while incorporating PV forecast updates. In real time, battery flexibility reduces imbalances. Here we show that, to ensure dispatchability—defined as keeping annual imbalances below 5% of PV output—a 1 MW PV system requires 220 kWh of storage for utility-scale and 50 kWh for distributed systems, increasing the levelized cost of electricity by +13.1% and +1.94%, respectively. Net present value is negative for BESSs performing imbalance netting only. Therefore, a multiple service strategy, including imbalance netting and energy arbitrage, is introduced. Performing arbitrage while keeping dispatchability reaches an economic optimum with a 1.7 MWh BESS for utility-scale systems and 1.1 MWh BESS for distributed systems. These results show lower PV firming costs than previous studies, and highlight that under a multiple-service strategy, better economic outcomes are obtained with larger storage capacities. Full article

Electricity price forecasting plays a fundamental role in ensuring efficient market operation and informed decision making. With the growing integration of renewable energy, prices have become more volatile and difficult to predict, increasing the necessity of accurate forecasting in bidding, scheduling, and risk management. This paper provides a comprehensive review of point forecasting models for electricity markets, covering classical statistical approaches both with and without exogenous inputs, and modern machine learning and deep learning techniques, including ensemble methods and hybrid architectures. Unlike standard reviews focused solely on the day-ahead market, we assess model performance across day-ahead, intra-day, and balancing markets, with each posing unique challenges due to differences in time resolution, data availability, and market structure. Through this market-specific lens, the paper merges insights from a broad set of studies; identifies persistent challenges, such as data quality, model interpretability, and generalisability; and outlines promising directions for future research. Our findings highlight the strong performance of hybrid and ensemble models in the day-ahead market, the dominance of recurrent neural networks in the intra-day market, and the relative effectiveness of simpler statistical models such as LEAR in the balancing market, where volatility and data sparsity remain critical challenges. Full article

The increasing integration of renewable energy sources necessitates efficient energy storage solutions, with large-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) playing a key role in grid stabilization and time-shifting of energy. This study presents a multi-level simulation framework for optimizing BESS operation across multiple markets while incorporating degradation-aware dispatch strategies. The framework integrates a day-ahead (DA) dispatch level, an intraday (ID) dispatch level, and a high-resolution simulation level to accurately model the impact of operational strategies on state of charge and battery degradation. A case study of BESS operation in the German electricity market is conducted, where frequency containment reserve provision is combined with DA and ID trading. The simulated revenue is validated by a battery revenue index. The study also compares full equivalent cycle (FEC)-based and state-of-health-based degradation models and discusses their application to cost estimation in dispatch optimization. The results emphasize the advantage of using FEC-based degradation costs for dispatch decision-making. Future research will include price forecasting and expanded market participation strategies to further improve and stabilize the profitability of BESS in multi-market environments. Full article

The compound energy system is an important component of zero-carbon buildings. Due to the complex form of the system and the difficult-to-capture characteristics of thermo-electric coupling interactions, the operation control of the zero-carbon building’s energy system is difficult in practical engineering. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out relevant optimization methods. This paper investigated the current research status of the control and scheduling of compound energy systems in zero-carbon buildings at home and abroad, selected a typical zero-carbon building as the research object, analyzed its energy system’s operational data, and proposed an operation scheduling algorithm based on day-ahead flexible programming and intraday rolling optimization. The multi-energy flow control algorithm model was developed to optimize the operation strategy of heat pump, photovoltaic, and energy storage systems. Then, the paper applied the algorithm model to a typical zero-carbon building project, and verified the actual effect of the method through the actual operational data. After applying the method in this paper, the self-absorption rate of photovoltaic power generation in the building increased by 7.13%. The research results provide a theoretical model and data support for the operation control of the zero-carbon building’s compound energy system, and could promote the market application of the compound energy system. Full article

The electricity market in Spain, as in many European countries, is organized into daily, intraday, and reserve markets. This project aims to predict the supply curves in the Spanish intraday market that have six sessions with different horizons of application, using information from the market itself. To achieve this, we approximate these curves using a non-uniform grid of points and evaluate the quality of these approximations with a weighted distance, both based on empirical market data. We employ neural network models, including multilayer perceptrons (MLPs), convolutional neural networks (CNNs), long short-term memory (LSTM), bidirectional LSTM (BiLSTM), and a Transformer network alongside a naive model for benchmarking. The MLP and CNN models demonstrated significant improvements in predicting these supply curves for the six market sessions. Full article

The “dual carbon” goal has made it a mainstream trend for new energy stations (NESs) and energy storage stations (ESSs) to jointly participate in market regulation. This paper proposes a multiple time scale distributed optimization method for NESs and ESSs based on the alternate direction multiplier method (ADMM). By first considering the uncertainty of new energy output and the volatility of electricity market prices, a multi time scale revenue model is constructed for day-ahead, intraday, and real-time markets. Then, the objective function is built by maximizing the comprehensive market revenues and is simplified using the synergistic effect of NESs and ESSs. Next, the simplified objective function is solved by the ADMM, and the revenues are maximized while each energy meets the relevant constraints. Lastly, the 33-node network topology is used to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method. The simulation results show that after optimization, the output of NESs and ESSs can coordinate work in day-ahead, intraday, and real-time markets, while the abandonment power of wind and light is significantly improved. Full article

The integration of large-scale wind power into power systems has exacerbated the challenges associated with peak load regulation. Concurrently, the ongoing advancement of electricity marketization reforms highlights the need to assess the impact of direct electricity procurement by large consumers on enhancing the flexibility of power systems. In this context, this paper introduces a Distributed Robust Optimal Scheduling (DROS) model, which addresses the uncertainties of wind power generation and direct electricity purchases by large consumers. Firstly, to mitigate the effects of wind power uncertainty on the power system, a first-order Markov chain model with interval characteristics is introduced. This approach effectively captures the temporal and variability aspects of wind power prediction errors. Secondly, building upon the day-ahead scenarios generated by the Markov chain, the model then formulates a data-driven optimization framework that spans from day-ahead to intra-day scheduling. In the day-ahead phase, the model leverages the price elasticity of the demand matrix to guide consumer behavior, with the primary objective of maximizing the total revenue of the wind farm. A robust scheduling strategy is developed, yielding an hourly scheduling plan for the day-ahead phase. This plan dynamically adjusts tariffs in the intra-day phase based on deviations in wind power output, thereby encouraging flexible user responses to the inherent uncertainty in wind power generation. Ultimately, the efficacy of the proposed DROS method is validated through extensive numerical simulations, demonstrating its potential to enhance the robustness and flexibility of power systems in the presence of significant wind power integration and market-driven direct electricity purchases. Full article

In recent years, the global energy sector has seen significant transformation, particularly in Europe, with a notable increase in intermittent renewable energy integration. Italy and the European Union (EU) have been among the leaders in this transition, with renewables playing a substantial role in electricity generation as of the mid-2020s. The adoption of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) has become crucial for enhancing grid efficiency, sustainability, and reliability by addressing intermittent renewable sources. This paper investigates the feasibility and economic viability of batteries in wholesale electricity markets as per EU regulation, focusing on the dynamics of very different markets, namely the Day-Ahead Market (DAM) based on system marginal price and the Cross-Border Intra-day Market (XBID) based on continuous trading. A novel model is proposed to enhance BESS operations, leveraging price arbitrage strategies based on zonal price predictions, levelized cost of storage (LCOS), and uncertain bid acceptance in continuous trading. Machine learning and deep learning techniques are applied for price forecasting and bid acceptance prediction, respectively. This study finds that data-driven techniques outperform reference models in price forecasting and bid acceptance prediction (+7–14% accuracy). Regarding market dynamics, this study reveals higher competitiveness in the continuous market compared to the DAM, particularly with increased risk factors in bids leading to higher profits. This research provides insights into compatibility between continuous markets and BESS, showing substantial improvements in economic profitability and the correlation between risk and profits in the bidding strategy (EUR +9 M yearly revenues are obtained with strategic behavior that reduces awarded energy by 60%). Full article

In a highly competitive electricity spot market, virtual power plants (VPPs) that aggregate dispersed resources face various uncertainties during market transactions. These uncertainties directly impact the economic benefits of VPPs. To address the uncertainties in the economic optimization of VPPs, scenario analysis is employed to transform the uncertainties of wind turbines (WTs), photovoltaic (PV) system outputs, and electricity prices into deterministic problems. The objective is to maximize the VPP’s profits in day-ahead and intra-day markets (real-time balancing market) by constructing an economic optimization decision model based on two-stage stochastic programming. Gas turbines and electric vehicles (EVs) are scheduled and traded in the day-ahead market, while flexible energy storage systems (ESS) are deployed in the real-time balancing market. Based on simulation analysis, under the uncertainty of WTs and PV system outputs, as well as electricity prices, the proposed model demonstrates that orderly charging of EVs in the day-ahead stage can increase the revenue of the VPP by 6.1%. Additionally, since the ESS can adjust the deviations in day-ahead bid output during the intra-day stage, the day-ahead bidding strategy becomes more proactive, resulting in an additional 3.1% increase in the VPP revenue. Overall, this model can enhance the total revenue of the VPP by 9.2%. Full article

The dynamic structure of electricity markets, where uncertainties abound due to, e.g., demand variations and renewable energy intermittency, poses challenges for market participants. We propose generative adversarial networks (GANs) to generate synthetic electricity price data. This approach aims to provide comprehensive data that accurately reflect the complexities of the actual electricity market by capturing its distribution. Consequently, we would like to equip market participants with a versatile tool for successfully dealing with strategy testing, risk model validation, and decision-making enhancement. Access to high-quality synthetic electricity price data is instrumental in cultivating a resilient and adaptive marketplace, ultimately contributing to a more knowledgeable and prepared electricity market community. In order to assess the performance of various types of GANs, we performed a numerical study on Turkey’s intraday electricity market weighted average price (IDM-WAP). As a key finding, we show that GANs can effectively generate realistic synthetic electricity prices. Furthermore, we reveal that the use of complex variants of GAN algorithms does not lead to a significant improvement in synthetic data quality. However, it requires a notable increase in computational costs. Full article

For several stakeholders, including market players, customers, grid operators, policy-makers, investors, and energy efficiency initiatives, having a precise estimate of power pricing is crucial. It is easier for traders to plan, purchase, and sell power transactions with access to accurate electricity price forecasting (EPF). Although energy production and consumption topics are widely discussed in the literature, EPF and renewable energy trading studies receive less attention, especially for intraday market modeling and forecasting. Considering the rapid development of renewable energy sources, the article highlights the significance of integrating the deep learning model, long short-term memory (LSTM), with the proper trading strategy for short-term hourly renewable energy trading by utilizing two different spot markets. Day-ahead and intraday markets are taken into account for the West Denmark grid region (DK1). The time series analysis indicates that LSTM yields superior results compared to other benchmark machine learning algorithms. Using the predictions obtained by LSTM and the recommended trading strategy, promising profit values are achieved for the DK1 wind and solar energy use case, which ensures future motivation to develop a general and flexible model for global data. Full article

Flexibility provision for ancillary services and electricity markets has been widely seen as crucial for the future of highly interconnected energy systems with high shares of renewables. Yet, little research has so far addressed (1) how its procurement could be best operationalized and (2) how limited flexible resources can be used more efficiently given the growing system needs. This paper focuses on flexibility services for transmission operators, specifically balancing and redispatch, as well as the intraday market within the context of the European electricity market. To analyze possible services and/or market combinations, we compare three modes of flexibility procurement: (a) sequential, (b) parallel and (c) combined. We evaluate the different modes of procurement options based on eight criteria. We further investigate how the procurement of flexibility, including small-scale technical units, could be organized via a flexibility platform given the most promising implementation setup, and detail the process for “flexibility service provider <> flexibility platform <> market interaction”, taking the multi-use-case logic into account. Full article

The Chinese government places significant importance on biomass energy due to its renewable and environmentally friendly attributes. However, the high cost of power generation poses a considerable hurdle to its development. This study aims to address the challenges facing the profitability and sustainable development of biomass power generation after the gradual withdrawal of the Chinese government by proposing a day-ahead real-time market-based trading strategy. It is prompted by the incentives offered by the Chinese government for the ongoing power market reform. This strategy is developed for a microgrid system that integrates biomass power generation with other renewable energy sources. The principles followed by the microgrid system include self-generation and consumption, electricity surplus sales, and electricity shortfall procurement. During the day-ahead stage, peak and valley tariffs are decided by the microgrid operator to exert influence on the incentives of capacity providers in accordance with the load trends, while in the intraday stage, the supply-demand imbalance is resolved by the stored electricity. In the trading process, marginal production and marginal pricing are specified to ensure the minimum trading volume and price for capacity traders, ensuring their profitability. It is demonstrated in this study that the trading strategy presented is more effective than conventional fixed-price trading in making biomass power generation profitable and sustainable, even after the Chinese government subsidy is phased out. Moreover, the other participant in the microgrid system can boost their earnings when compared to generating power individually for trading. Full article

With the growing popularity of charging pile infrastructure and the development of smart electronic devices and 5G communication technologies, the electric vehicle aggregator (EVA) as a bidding entity can aggregate numerous electric vehicle (EV) resources to participate in the electricity market. Moreover, as the number of grid-connected EVs increases, EVA will have an impact on the nodal marginal prices of electricity market clearing. Aiming at the bidding and offering problem of EVA participation in the day-ahead and intra-day electricity markets, based on the Stackelberg game theory, this paper establishes a bilevel optimization model for EVA participation in the two-stage electricity market as a price-maker. In the proposed bilevel model, the upper-level and lower-level models are constructed as an operational problem for EVA and a market-clearing problem for independent system operator (ISO), respectively. In the day-ahead stage, EVA is optimized to maximize its own expected benefits, and ISO aims to improve the social benefits. In the intra-day stage, EVA is optimized to maximize its self-interest, and the ISO aims to make it possible to minimize the cost of expenditures to maintain the system’s supply–demand balance. Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions and dual theory are used to transform the nonlinear bilevel programming model into a mixed-integer single-level linear programming model. In order to verify the validity of the proposed bilevel model as well as to comparatively analyze the impact of EVA’s participation in the electricity market on the market clearing results. Two scenarios are set up where EVA is seen as the price-taker in Scenario 1 and EVA is seen as the price-maker in Scenario 2. ISO’s revenue under Scenario 2 increased by USD 2262.66 compared to Scenario 1. In addition, the EVA acts as an energy consumer in Scenario 1 with a charging cost of USD 26,432.95, whereas in Scenario 2, the EVA can profit by participating in the electricity market with a revenue of USD 26,432.95, at which point the EVA acts like a virtual power plant. The simulation examples verify that the proposed bilevel optimization model can improve the benefits of ISO and EVA at the same time, achieving mutual benefits for both parties. In addition, the simulation analyzes the impact of abandonment penalty price on ISO and EVA intra-day revenues. Comparing the scenarios where the abandonment penalty price is 0 with USD 10/MW, the ISO’s revenue in the intra-day market decreases by USD 197.5. Correspondingly, EVA’s reserve capacity is dispatched to consume wind power in the intra-day market, and its revenue increases by USD 197.5. The proposed two-stage bilevel optimization model can provide a reference for EVA to develop scheduling strategies in the day-ahead and intra-day electricity markets. Full article