Future power systems, in which generation will come almost entirely from variable Renewable Energy Sources (vRES), will be characterized by weather-driven supply and flexible demand. In a simulation of the future Dutch power system, we analyze whether there are sufficient incentives for market-driven investors to provide a sufficient level of security of supply, considering the profit-seeking and myopic behavior of investors. We co-simulate two agent-based models (ABM), one for generation expansion and one for the operational time scale. The results suggest that in a system with a high share of vRES and flexibility, prices will be set predominantly by the demand’s willingness to pay, particularly by the opportunity cost of flexible hydrogen electrolyzers. The demand for electric heating could double the price of electricity in winter, compared to summer, and in years with low vRES could cause shortages. Simulations with stochastic weather profiles increase the year-to-year variability of cost recovery by more than threefold and the year-to-year price variability by more than tenfold compared to a scenario with no weather uncertainty. Dispatchable technologies have the most volatile annual returns due to high scarcity rents during years of low vRES production and diminished returns during years with high vRES production. We conclude that in a highly renewable EOM, investors would not have sufficient incentives to ensure the reliability of the system. If they invested in such a way to ensure that demand could be met in a year with the lowest vRES yield, they would not recover their fixed costs in the majority of years. ... Read more

Developing innovative electricity market designs to facilitate a sustainable transition to (near) 100% renewable power systems while meeting societal needs is a crucial and actual topic of research. This article presents preliminary key findings from the H2020 European project TradeRES, addressing this critical topic. The project uses agent-based and optimization models to effectively capture the behaviour of different market players, and to analyse the current and future power system energy mixes of selected European case studies with different physical and spatial scales from: i) local energy communities and local energy markets (LEMs); ii) national/regional - the Netherlands, Germany, and Iberia (Portugal and Spain); and iii) pan-European energy markets. The first results on LEMs indicate a substantial economic benefit for participants and enhanced revenue streams for distributed energy resources, able to i) incentivise further decentralised investments; ii) promote the growth of variable renewable energy systems (vRES) and iii) increase flexibility at the local level. The outcomes are sensitive to the tariffs’ structure, while the retail sector competitiveness was identified as a critical parameter affecting its efficiency. For the pan-European and national/regional case studies, the first set of simulations had consistent outcomes, namely, by pointing out current design of energy-only markets to be insufficient to incentivize the high levels of vRES foreseen in Europe. Different support schemes (e.g., fixed market premia, contract for differences) were tested and results suggest they may play a relevant role in effectively covering the cost of vRES in a market environment. ... Read more