Essays on Average Incremental Cost Pricing for Independent System Operators

In a series of essays, we introduce average incremental cost (AIC) pricing and present examples to help understand its advantages. In non-convex markets, AIC pricing is the rough equivalent to marginal cost pricing in convex markets. We present a qualitative comparison of current ISO pricing methods and the AIC approach. We argue that AIC better … Read more

One-Pass Average Incremental Cost Pricing

Since the inception of ISOs, Locational Marginal Prices (LMPs) alone were not incentive compatible because an auction winner who offered its avoidable costs could lose money at the LMP. ISOs used make-whole payments to ensure market participants did not lose money. Make-whole payments were not public creating transparency issues. Over time, the ISOs employed methods … Read more

Stochastic Look-Ahead Commitment: A Case Study in MISO

This paper introduces the Stochastic Look Ahead Commitment (SLAC) software prototyped and tested for the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) look ahead commitment process. SLAC can incorporate hundreds of wind, load and net scheduled interchange (NSI) uncertainty scenarios. It uses a progressive hedging method to solve a two-stage stochastic unit commitment. The first stage optimal … Read more

Capturing Unit Startup and Shutdown Uncertainties in the Real-time Commitment Process

Generation uncertainties, especially during the unit startup and shutdown (SU/SD) processes, pose uncertainties for the real-time market clearing process, and they are often underestimated. This paper proposes two approaches to predict generator SU/SD trajectories in the real-time operations of independent system operators or regional transmission organizations (ISO/RTOs). We first collect and pre-process raw market data … Read more

Battery Storage Formulation and Impact on Day Ahead Security Constrained Unit Commitment

This paper discusses battery storage formulations and analyzes the impact of the constraints on the computational performance of security constrained unit commitment (SCUC). Binary variables are in general required due to mutual exclusiveness of charging and discharging modes. We use valid inequalities to improve the SOC constraints. Adding batteries to the MISO day ahead market … Read more

Optimization formulations for storage devices

We consider a storage device, such as a pumped storage hydroelectric generator, that has a state-of-charge together with mutually exclusive charging and generating modes. We develop valid inequalities for a storage model that uses binary variables to represent the charging and generating modes. To investigate the model, we consider two contexts, standalone and large-scale. The … Read more

A Unified Approach to Solve Convex Hull Pricing and Average Incremental Cost Pricing

This paper introduces a unified approach to solving convex hull pricing (CHP) and average incremental cost (AIC) pricing problems. By developing a convex hull and convex envelope formulation for individual resources, a CHP model that minimizes uplift can be solved by linear programming (LP) using relaxation of the binary terms of the security constrained unit … Read more

Enhancements of Extended Locational Marginal Pricing – Advancing Practical Implementation

Price formation is critical to efficient wholesale electricity markets that support reliable operation and efficient investment. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) developed the Extended Locational Marginal Pricing (ELMP) with the goal of more completely reflecting resource costs and generally improving price formation to better incent market participation. MISO developed ELMP based on the mathematical … Read more

Strengthened MILP Formulation for Combined-Cycle Units

Due to the increased utilization of gas-fired combined-cycle units for power generation in the U.S., accurate and computationally efficient models are more and more needed. The recently proposed edge-based formulation for combined-cycle units helps accurately describe the operations of combined-cycle units including capturing the transition processes and physical constraints for each turbine. In this paper, … Read more