Learning Outcomes
The students study the basic principles of the energy sector in the current context of restructuring towards a no-carbon energy supply by 2050 and its common challenges as well as the creation of a European energy market. Students learn to apply the common academic methodology in energy economics, techno-economic analysis using numerical optimization in sample cases during the course and in a final project. Knowledge of methodology is taught in relation to the design and regulation of energy markets and applied by the students in sample cases during the module. Regular homework assignments require the students to work through academic research papers and train self-study. The students learn the basic principles of open science, specifically creating reproducable work using open source tools, open data and open results.
Content
The module covers issues relating to the design of electricity markets with a high proportion of power generation using renewables. It also examines network-related fields and their interplay with regional generation and demand. Following a general introduction to the electricity sector, various special features of electricity as a good and their impact on the functioning of the electricity sector are derived analytically. In this context, the module examines the short-term pricing of a range of energy market products and necessary long-term incentives for system adequacy. The main methodology used is numerical modeling. The course teaches the open source programming language Julia and the use of open data platforms.
- Introduction: basics of energy economics, energy transformation, and motivation of quantitative methods
- Operation Research: recap of optimization and linear problems, graphic solution, simplex and standard form, duality and dual simplex
- Dispatch Problem: electricity markets, merit order, economic dispatch problem, renewable generation, heating and storages in (linear) economic dispatch problems
- Network: zonal markets, transport model, market prices, model prices (shadow prices/duality), nodal markets, linear power flow formulation, power transfer distribution factor (PTDF) matrix, locational marginal prices (LMPs)
- Unit Commitment: mixed integer problems, minimum generation, startup and shutdown costs
- Capacity Expansion: screening curves, overnight costs and annuity, greefield model of capacity expansion
- Introduction to the Julia programing language
