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The effects of demand uncertainty on strategic gaming in the merit-order electricity pool market

Posted on:2011-12-07Degree:M.EngType:Thesis
University:McGill University (Canada)Candidate:Frem, BassamFull Text:PDF
GTID:2449390002467150Subject:Economics
Abstract/Summary:
In a merit-order electricity pool market, generating companies (Gencos) game with their offered incremental cost to meet the electricity demand and earn bigger market shares and higher profits. However when the demand is treated as a random variable instead of as a known constant, these Genco gaming strategies become more complex.;In the first part, we proposed an algorithm, the discrete stochastic strategy (DSS) algorithm that generates a strategic set of offers from the perspective of the Gencos' profits. The DSS offers were tested and compared to the deterministic Nash equilibrium (NE) offers based on the predicted demand. This comparison, based on the expected Genco profits, showed the DSS to be a better strategy in a probabilistic sense than the deterministic NE.;In the second part, we presented three gaming strategies: (1) Deterministic NE (2) No-Risk (3) Risk-Taking. The strategies were then tested and their profit performances were compared using two assessment tools: (a) Expected value and standard deviation (b) Inverse cumulative distribution. We concluded that despite yielding higher profit performance under the right conjectures, Risk-Taking strategies are very sensitive to incorrect conjectures on the competitors' gaming decisions. As such, despite its lower profit performance, the No-Risk strategy was deemed preferable.;After a brief introduction of electricity markets and gaming, the effects of demand uncertainty on strategic gaming are studied in two parts: (1) Demand modelled as a discrete random variable (2) Demand modelled as a continuous random variable.
Keywords/Search Tags:Demand, Electricity, Gaming, Random variable, Strategic
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