Demand Bids Research Articles

Optimal Response of an Oligopolistic Generating Company to a Competitive Electric Power Market

The target of an oligopolistic generating company in a pool-based electric power market is to maximize its profits using two related instruments at hand: (i) its ability to modify the market-clearing price and (ii) its capability to alter its own production level. Power balance is not an issue for the generating company; the independent system operator ensures power balance considering generator and demand bids through any market-clearing procedure. This paper proposes a mathematical model to determine the output of the generators owned by an oligopolistic generating company so that its profit is maximized for a one-day to one-week time horizon. An efficient solution technique to solve the resulting large-scale discontinuous nonlinear mixed-integer optimization problem is reported. A case study that illustrates the proposed model and the solution technique developed is analyzed in detail.

Evaluation of a Truthful Revelation Auction in the Context of Energy Markets with Nonconcave Benefits

We describe a Vickrey-Clarke-Groves auction for supply and demand bidding in the face of market power and nonconcave benefits in which bidders are motivated to bid truthfully, and evaluate its use for power and gas pipeline capacity auctions. The auction efficiently allocate resources if firms maximize profit. Simulations, including an application to the PJM power market, illustrate the procedure. However, the auction has several undesirable properties. It risks being revenue deficient, can be gamed by cooperating suppliers and consumers, and is subject to the information revelation and bid-taker cheating concerns that make single item Vickrey auctions rare.