Price Volatility and Banking in Green Certificate Markets

There is concern that prices in a market for Green Certificates (GCs) primarily based on volatile wind power will fluctuate excessively, leading to corresponding volatility of electricity prices. Applying a rational expectations simulation model of competitive storage and speculation of GCs the paper shows that the introduction of banking of GCs may reduce price volatility considerably and lead to increased social surplus. Banking lowers average prices and is therefore not necessarily to the benefit of “green producers”. Proposed price bounds on GC-prices will reduce the importance of banking and even of the GC system itself.electricity; environment; commodity speculation; green certificates; marketable permits; uncertainty

Crude oil risk forecasting : new evidence from multiscale analysis approach

Fluctuations in the crude oil price allied to risk have increased significantly over the last decade frequently varying at different risk levels. Although existing models partially predict such variations, so far, they have been unable to predict oil prices accurately in this highly volatile market. The development of an effective, predictive model has therefore become a prime objective of research in this field. Our approach, albeit based in part on previous research, develops an original methodology, in that we have created a risk forecasting model with the ability to predict oil price fluctuations caused by changes in both fundamental and transient risk factors. We achieve this by disintegrating the multi-scale risk-structure of the crude oil market using Variational Mode Decomposition. Normal and transient risk factors are then extracted from the crude oil price using Variational Mode Decomposition and modelled separately using the Quantile Regression Neural Network (QRNN) model. Both risk factors are integrated and ensembled to produce the risk estimates. We then apply our proposed risk forecasting model to predicting future downside risk level in three major crude oil markets, namely the West Taxes Intermediate (WTI), the Brent Market, and the OPEC market. The results demonstrate that our model has the ability to capture downside risk estimates with significantly improved precision, thus reducing estimation errors and increasing forecasting reliability

Operational planning and bidding for district heating systems with uncertain renewable energy production

In countries with an extended use of district heating (DH), the integrated operation of DH and power systems can increase the flexibility of the power system achieving a higher integration of renewable energy sources (RES). DH operators can not only provide flexibility to the power system by acting on the electricity market, but also profit from the situation to lower the overall system cost. However, the operational planning and bidding includes several uncertain components at the time of planning: electricity prices as well as heat and power production from RES. In this publication, we propose a planning method that supports DH operators by scheduling the production and creating bids for the day-ahead and balancing electricity markets. The method is based on stochastic programming and extends bidding strategies for virtual power plants to the DH application. The uncertain factors are considered explicitly through scenario generation. We apply our solution approach to a real case study in Denmark and perform an extensive analysis of the production and trading behaviour of the DH system. The analysis provides insights on how DH system can provide regulating power as well as the impact of uncertainties and renewable sources on the planning. Furthermore, the case study shows the benefit in terms of cost reductions from considering a portfolio of units and both markets to adapt to RES production and market states

Machine Learning for Load Profile Data Analytics and Short-term Load Forecasting

Short-term load forecasting (STLF) is a key issue for the operation and dispatch of day ahead energy market. It is a prerequisite for the economic operation of power systems and the basis of dispatching and making startup-shutdown plans, which plays a key role in the automatic control of power systems. Accurate power load forecasting not only help users choose a more appropriate electricity consumption scheme and reduces a lot of electric cost expenditure but also is conducive to optimizing the resources of power systems. This advantage helps while improving equipment utilization for reducing the production cost and improving the economic benefit, and improving power supply capability. Therefore, ultimately achieving the aim of efficient demand response program. This thesis outlines some machine learning based data driven models for STLF in smart grid. It also presents different policies and current statuses as well as future research direction for developing new STLF models. This thesis outlines three projects for load profile data analytics and machine learning based STLF models. First project is, load profile classification and determining load demand variability with the aim to estimate the load demand of a customer. In this project load profile data collected from smart meter are classified using recently developed extended nearest neighbor (ENN) algorithm. Here we have calculated generalized class wise statistics which will give the idea of load demand variability of a customer. Finally the load demand of a particular customer is estimated based on generalized class wise statistics, maximum load demand and minimum load demand. In the second project, a composite ENN model is proposed for STLF. The ENN model is proposed to improve the performance of k-nearest neighbor (kNN) algorithm based STLF models. In this project we have developed three individual models to process weather data i.e., temperature, social variables, and load demand data. The load demand is predicted separately for different input variables. Finally the load demand is forecasted from the weighted average of three models. The weights are determined based on the change in generalized class wise statistics. This projects provides a significant improvement in the performance of load forecasting accuracy compared to kNN based models. In the third project, an advanced data driven model is developed. Here, we have proposed a novel hybrid load forecasting model based on novel signal decomposition and correlation analysis. The hybrid model consists of improved empirical mode decomposition, T-Copula based correlation analysis. Finally we have employed deep belief network for making load demand forecasting. The results are compared with previous studies and it is evident that there is a significant improvement in mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and root mean square error (RMSE)

Optimized hybrid ensemble learning approaches applied to very short-term load forecasting

The significance of accurate short-term load forecasting (STLF) for modern power systems’ efficient and secure operation is paramount. This task is intricate due to cyclicity, non-stationarity, seasonality, and nonlinear power consumption time series data characteristics. The rise of data accessibility in the power industry has paved the way for machine learning (ML) models, which show the potential to enhance STLF accuracy. This paper presents a novel hybrid ML model combining Gradient Boosting Regressor (GBR), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), k-Nearest Neighbors (kNN), and Support Vector Regression (SVR), examining both standalone and integrated, coupled with signal decomposition techniques like STL, EMD, EEMD, CEEMDAN, and EWT. Through Automated Machine Learning (AutoML), these models are integrated and their hyperparameters optimized, predicting each load signal component using data from two sources: The National Operator of Electric System (ONS) and the Independent System Operators New England (ISO-NE), boosting prediction capacity. For the 2019 ONS dataset, combining EWT and XGBoost yielded the best results for very short-term load forecasting (VSTLF) with an RMSE of 1,931.8 MW, MAE of 1,564.9 MW, and MAPE of 2.54%. These findings highlight the necessity for diverse approaches to each VSTLF problem, emphasizing the adaptability and strength of ML models combined with signal decomposition techniques

Smart Metering System: Developing New Designs to Improve Privacy and Functionality

This PhD project aims to develop a novel smart metering system that plays a dual role: Fulfil basic functions (metering, billing, management of demand for energy in grids) and protect households from privacy intrusions whilst enabling them a degree of freedom. The first two chapters of the thesis will introduce the research background and a detailed literature review on state-of-the-art works for protecting smart meter data. Chapter 3 discusses theory foundations for smart meter data analytics, including machine learning, deep learning, and information theory foundations. The rest of the thesis is split into two parts, ‘Privacy’ and ‘Functionality’, respectively. In the ‘Privacy’ part, the overall smart metering system, as well as privacy configurations, are presented. A threat/adversary model is developed at first. Then a multi-channel smart metering system is designed to reduce the privacy risks of the adversary. Each channel of the system is responsible for one functionality by transmitting different granular smart meter data. In addition, the privacy boundary of the smart meter data in the proposed system is also discovered by introducing a data mining algorithm. By employing the algorithm, a three-level privacy boundary is concluded. Furthermore, a differentially private federated learning-based value-added service platform is designed to provide flexible privacy guarantees to consumers and balance the trade-off between privacy loss and service accuracy. In the ‘Functionality’ part, three feeder-level functionalities: load forecasting, solar energy separation, and energy disaggregation are evaluated. These functionalities will increase thepredictability, visibility, and controllability of the distributed network without utilizing household smart meter data. Finally, the thesis will conclude and summarize the overall system and highlight the contributions and novelties of this project

Predicting the Future

Due to the increased capabilities of microprocessors and the advent of graphics processing units (GPUs) in recent decades, the use of machine learning methodologies has become popular in many fields of science and technology. This fact, together with the availability of large amounts of information, has meant that machine learning and Big Data have an important presence in the field of Energy. This Special Issue entitled “Predicting the Future—Big Data and Machine Learning” is focused on applications of machine learning methodologies in the field of energy. Topics include but are not limited to the following: big data architectures of power supply systems, energy-saving and efficiency models, environmental effects of energy consumption, prediction of occupational health and safety outcomes in the energy industry, price forecast prediction of raw materials, and energy management of smart buildings