Hydropower bidding in a multi-market setting

Abstract

We present a literature survey and research gap analysis of mathematical and statistical methods used in the context of optimizing bids in electricity markets. Particularly, we are interested in methods for hydropower producers that participate in multiple, sequential markets for short-term delivery of physical power. As most of the literature focus on day-ahead bidding and thermal energy producers, there are important research gaps for hydropower, which require specialized methods due to the fact that electricity may be stored as water in reservoirs. Our opinion is that multi-market participation, although reportedly having a limited profit potential, can provide gains in flexibility and system stability for hydro producers. We argue that managing uncertainty is of key importance for making good decision support tools for the multi-market bidding problem. Considering uncertainty calls for some form of stochastic programming, and we define a modelling process that consists of three interconnected tasks; mathematical modelling, electricity price forecasting and scenario generation. We survey research investigating these tasks and point out areas that are not covered by existing literature.