Five indicators for assessing bidding area configurations in zonally-priced power markets

The boost in intermittent renewable generation increases the constraints on the transmission lines, including the interconnections between neighboring countries. This rises the concerns on the security of supply in the power systems. In addition it damages the efficiency of the electricity market.The modification of the bidding area configuration is often considered as a solution to manage this problematic situation. This paper presents five indicators to evaluate the impact of different bidding zone configurations in a zonally-priced electricity market. A mixed complementarity problem is formulated to model zonal pricing. The Nordic 32-bus example system is modified and studied as a case study in order to explain the application of the presented indicators better. The intermittent nature of the wind power are captured by scenarios of wind power availability. Numerical results shows the efficiency of the indicators to study the impacts of different bidding zone configurations.