Functie
PhD
Beschrijving
The current design of the European electricity markets is being challenged, especially in terms of its ability to cope with spot price volatility. Indeed, renewable dominated electricity systems are expected to generate electricity prices that are volatile and difficult to predict. The recent geopolitical crisis has moreover demonstrated the impact of fossil fuel supply interruptions on our electricity prices. As such, there are (to some extent paradoxical) concerns that today’s market structure (i) might not produce the required (firm) capacity additions because these have become too risky and (ii) can cause undesirable distributional effects (e.g. excessively rewarding existing generators to the detriment of electricity consumers in the event of price shocks).
The European Commission has recently (March 3) proposed to reform the EU’s electricity market design. To address the concerns mentioned above, the European Commission’s proposal and a number of works in the literature put forward a series of measures to improve long-term price signals. Some of these measures put significant emphasis on to the development and implementation of several publicly funded long-term contracts (support mechanisms) such as Capacity Remuneration Mechanisms (CRM), Contracts for Differences (CfDs) and flexibility support schemes. These long-term contracts will coexist with exiting market-based tools such as Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and power futures and forwards.
All of these long-term contracts will affect market outcomes and are expected to interact with each other. However, these interactions have not yet been researched. The aim of this PhD is therefore to examine how these publicly funded and market-based long-term contracts affect electricity market outcomes, and which interactions they can cause depending on their particular design. The outcomes of this PhD will be relevant to policy makers and academics aiming to design and calibrate these instruments/long-term contracts.
To address the research gap, we foresee the following three work packages as main steps to complete this project:
WP1: Classification of publicly funded and market-based long-term contracts
As a first step, the PhD student would create an overview and classification of the long-term contracts that are currently being used/discussed. The overview should include (i) a survey on practical implementations, (ii) the rationales for their implementation, (iii) and an overview on the particularities of each of these mechanisms. Indeed, these contracts (CRMs, CfDs, etc.) have multiple design options and each of these may lead to different interactions with other instruments. The main aim of this WP, apart from compiling a state-of-the-art review, is to identify the long-term contracts that are considered to be most crucial going forward (i.e. in terms of implementation, potential for distortions and interactions, etc.)
WP2: Model development
This WP aims at developing and deploying quantitative models that aim at mimicking market outcomes. In particular, these models aim at capturing the decision-making of the relevant market participants in terms of contracting, investment, dispatch and possibly maintenance. Uncertainty could be included through a scenario-based approach, which may impact various consumer groups differently. The model results will hence provide insights in the implications of different long-term contracts on market outcomes. Initial focus will be on optimization and equilibrium models, the latter could be solved as equivalent optimization problems (EOP), with ADMM, big M linearization or other techniques. Models might be enriched with data, possibly including data-driven techniques/machine learning.
WP3: Analysis of publicly funded and market-based long-term contracts
Given a set of long-term contracts that will be of relevance (WP1) and a modelling framework with the capabilities to analyze market outcomes under these contracts (WP2), the PhD student will analyze how these contracts interact and how these affect market outcomes. The analysis could focus on ongoing Belgian issues, e.g. CfDs for the princess Elisabeth-zone offshore wind park, flexibility subsidies in parallel to reliability options, etc. Key performance metrics can include system cost, producer and consumer surplus, risk exposure, adequacy metrics, the capacity mix, among others.
Meer info:
Profiel
1. MSc in electrical/mechanical engineering, applied mathematics, economics, or a related field
2. Strong interest and drive to conduct scientific research
3. Interest in the following domains (previous experience is a plus):European electricity markets Optimization and operations research Economics of electrical systemsOperation and planning of electrical systems
4. Willingness to work in Belgium
5. Availability to defend the PhD topic in February 4