Unified software platform for simulating different electricity spot market architectures

Electricity spot market architectures have rapidly evolve; its understanding, behavior and re-design can be guided with the help of unified simulation platforms. This paper presents a software platform for the unified simulation of different energy spot market architectures. The simulator considers three different architectures: (i) decentralized spot markets (the combined market and system operator approach, as in the Spanish market and the original architecture adopted in California); (ii) centralized spot markets (for spot markets whose basis is a unit commitment model) and (iii) hybrid spot market architectures (electricity markets that operate under a single operator and avoid unit-commitment type of complexities). The software platform integrates tools for data management and display as well as available solvers for mathematical programming problems. The platform has successfully been used for basic training on electricity markets to around fifty engineers of the national energy control center in Mexico, undergraduates and graduates on electrical engineering, personnel at the energy regulatory commission in Mexico and engineers of five different system/market operators of the Central American countries.