Competitive Strategic Bidding Optimization in Electricity Markets Using Bilevel Programming and Swarm Technique

Competitive strategic bidding optimization is now a key issue in electricity generator markets. Digital ecosystems provide a powerful technological foundation and support for the implementation of the optimization. This paper presents a new strategic bidding optimization technique which applies bilevel programming and swarm intelligence. In this paper, we first propose a general multileader-one-follower nonlinear bilevel (MLNB) optimization concept and related definitions based on the generalized Nash equilibrium. By analyzing the strategic bidding behavior of generating companies, we create a specific MLNB decision model for day-ahead electricity markets. The MLNB decision model allows each generating company to choose its biddings to maximize its individual profit, and a market operator can find its minimized purchase electricity fare, which is determined by the output power of each unit and the uniform marginal prices. We then develop a particle-swarm-optimization-based algorithm to solve the problem defined in the MLNB decision model. The experiment results on a strategic bidding problem for a day-ahead electricity market have demonstrated the validity of the proposed decision model and algorithm.