Day-Ahead Operational Scheduling With Enhanced Flexible Ramping Product: Design and Analysis

New resource mix, e.g., renewable resources, are imposing operational complexities to modern power systems by intensifying uncertainty and variability in the system net load. This issue has motivated independent system operators (ISOs), e.g., California ISO (CAISO), to add flexible ramping products (FRPs) to their day-ahead (DA) market models. Such structural changes in the DA market formulation require further analyses and detailed design to ensure adequate operational flexibility, market efficiency, and reliability. This paper conducts a comprehensive study to: (a) augment existing DA market models with enhanced FRP design to schedule ramp capabilities that are more adaptive with respect to the real-time (RT) 15-min net load variability and uncertainty, and (b) design corresponding market payment policies that accurately reflect the value of the added flexibility through enhanced FRP design. The proposed FRP design can be implemented in present-day system operations with minimal disruption to existing DA market models. Performance of the proposed DA market model, which includes the enhanced FRP design, is compared against the DA market model with existing FRP design through a validation methodology based on RT unit commitment model. This validation methodology mimics fifteen-minute markets of CAISO. The proposed method is tested on an IEEE 118-bus test system.

Automated summary

This paper studies the issues of uncertainty and variability in modern power systems caused by the increase of renewable resources. It proposes a more adaptive day-ahead market model by enhancing the design of flexible ramping products (FRPs) and designing corresponding market payment policies. The proposed method minimizes disruption to existing market models when implemented in present-day system operations.