On Incentive Compatible Market Designs for Incorporation of Renewable Energy Sources and Demand Response in Power Systems

Market designs in electric power systems face new challenges in incorporating large-scale renewable energy in-feed and demand side participation (DSP). In order to enhance power system flexibility and reduce the amount of reserve capacity required two key issues must be addressed: 1) provision of financial incentives for DSP in ancillary service markets, and 2) incentives for intermittent renewables and demand to adhere to their forecasted schedules. In the first part of the talk, I will present ongoing research on cost allocation of load balance-related products, which may be event-driven, i.e. contingency reserves, or non-event driven, i.e. ramping/load-following reserves. The rationale is that holding participants liable for any possible imbalance remediation that the system may have to incur due to the participant's actions will reduce the need for actions to keep permanent system balance. In the second part, I will give a taxonomy of retail market designs for DSP. A market mechanism based on contracts that financially rewards demand units for participation in direct load control seems to be the most promising variant for DSP in ancillary service markets. Therefore, I will present ongoing research on contract design mechanisms and discuss the role of information shared amongst market participants.
Tobias Haring is a PhD Student at the Power Systems Laboratory at ETH Zurich under the supervision of Prof. Goran Andersson. Currently he is a visitor at the Renewable Energy Analysis Lab at the University of Washington. Before he joined the Power Systems Laboratory at ETH Zurich, he received a M.A. in economics from the University of Graz and a M.Sc. in electrical engineering from Graz University of Technology. His fields of interests include optimization techniques, modeling and analysis, power systems economics, and market design with emphasis on the cost effective inclusion of renewable energy and demand response. He is student member of the IEEE.