Portfolio Optimization for Electricity Market Participation with Particle Swarm

The liberalization of energy markets has imposed several modifications in the electricity market environment. The paradigm of monopoly market ceased to exist, and new models have been put into practice. The new models have increased the incentive on competitiveness, making market players struggle to achieve the best outcomes out of market participation. Producers aim at reaching the maximum profit on the sale of energy, while consumers try to minimize their spending on electrical energy. The proposed methodology considers the optimization of players´ participation in multiple market opportunities. Reference prices that are expected in each market type at each moment are achieved through the application of neural networks. Using the forecasted prices, the proposed portfolio optimization method allocates the sale and purchase of electrical energy to different markets throughout the time, with the aim at achieving the most advantageous participation profile. A particle swarm approach is used to reduce the execution time while guaranteeing the minimum degradation of the results. Results of the swarm methodology are compared to those of a deterministic approach, using real data from the Iberian electricity market - MIBEL.