Top publication by Endre Bjørndal, Mette Bjørndal and Hong Cai

21 August 2017 10:57

Top publication by Endre Bjørndal, Mette Bjørndal and Hong Cai

The article "Hybrid pricing in a coupled European power market with more wind power" has been published in European Journal of Operational Research.

European Journal of Operational Research is on level 4 in the ABS Academic Journal Guide.

Bjørndal, Endre, Mette Bjørndal, Hong Cai, and Evangelos Panos: Hybrid pricing in a coupled European power market with more wind power, European Journal of Operational Research, Online 27.06.2017.

Abstract

In the European electricity market, the promotion of wind power leads to more network congestion. Zonal pricing (market coupling), which does not take the physical characteristics of transmission into account, is the most commonly used method to relieve network congestion in Europe. However, zonal pricing fails to provide adequate locational price signals regarding scarcity of energy and thus creates a large amount of unscheduled cross-border flows originating from wind-generated power. In this paper, we investigate the effects of applying a hybrid congestion management model, i.e., a nodal pricing model for one country embedded in a zonal pricing system for the rest of the market. We find that, compared to full nodal pricing, hybrid pricing fails to fully utilize all the resources in the network and some wrong price signals might be given. However, hybrid pricing still outperforms zonal pricing. The results from the study cases show that, within the area applying nodal pricing, better price signals are given; the need for re-dispatching is reduced; more congestion rent is collected domestically and the unit cost of power is reduced.