Optimal Maintenance Strategies for Generation Companies in Electricity Markets with Risk Management

Electricity prices exhibit highly volatile characteristics in many operating electricity spot markets around the globe, and hence different arrangements of maintenance scheduling of generating units for the generation companies concerned will have different financial impacts. In making the maintenance scheduling decision, the information or data utilized or based especially the electricity prices in future trading periods is inaccurate or uncertain, and hence risk will inevitably be introduced. Based on the estimated market clearing prices of electricity, an effort is made in this paper to investigate the optimal strategies of maintenance scheduling for generating units with risk well taken into account, under the methodological framework of the well-developed chance constrained programming. Specifically, two scenarios are investigated in detail, i.e., for the two cases that the generation company studied is/is not a price taker in the electricity market operation. Mathematical models and solving methods for these two cases are developed, and sample examples given for demonstration