Improving Power System Models for the Low-carbon Transition
Open Access
- Author:
- Valqui Ordonez, Brayam D
- Graduate Program:
- Energy and Mineral Engineering
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- October 09, 2023
- Committee Members:
- Jeremy Gernand, Program Head/Chair
Mort Webster, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Karen Fisher-Vanden, Outside Unit & Field Member
Seth Blumsack, Major Field Member
Chiara Lo Prete, Major Field Member - Keywords:
- Bulk Power Systems
Electricity Markets
Low-carbon Transition
Power system operation and planning
Environmental Regulations
Extreme Weather Events
Generation Expansion Planning
Game-Theory
Complementarity Modeling
Mixed-Integer Linear Programming - Abstract:
- This dissertation explores the impacts of environmental regulations in bulk power systems via novel modeling frameworks. Chapters 2 and 3 model the effect of different types of strategic behavior in electricity markets with low-carbon policies. On the other hand, Chapter 4 focuses on the impact of extreme weather events on the low-carbon transition. Chapter 2 presents a game-theoretic framework that includes two critical features of electricity markets: strategic adoption decisions by firms and intertemporal constraints on power plant operations. We apply this framework to a case study based on the Midwestern U.S. electricity market and explore whether biomass co-firing would decrease emissions. We show that profit-maximizing firms will retrofit mid-efficiency coal units, rather than the most or least efficient units. We demonstrate that, contrary to expectations, this strategy leads to a net increase in system-wide carbon emissions under high carbon prices because of the other generators displaced by co-firing units. Chapter 3 focuses on understanding the impacts of strategic investment decisions under a carbon tax in electricity markets. Using the framework of an equilibrium problem with equilibrium constraints, we investigate whether the optimal portfolio in a market with strategic investors differ from the results from a centralized cost-minimization plan. We apply this framework to an illustrative example and case study based on PJM. We demonstrate that strategic investors build a portfolio of technologies that increases electricity prices, total profits, and total system cost relative to the cost-minimization framework. We show that these results are robust to the carbon tax level, the number of firms in the market, network congestion, and test systems. Our simulations also show that the impact of strategic investment decisions on total emissions varies for different scenarios and is directly influenced by the existing generation mix in the system. Chapter 4 develops a novel generation expansion model that considers a low-carbon target and high-water temperature scenarios. To account for the interaction between capacity changes and likely high-water temperatures, resilience constraints are embedded in the proposed framework. We apply this framework to a case study based on the Western Electricity Coordinating Council. We demonstrate that our proposed model leads to lower retirement of high-carbon thermal units to comply with the resilience constraints. The effect of these planning decisions in the proposed model is a higher fixed O\&M cost but a significantly lower resilience cost, which leads to a net reduction in the total system cost relative to a traditional generation expansion model.