SUMMARYZone division is a major problem in new electricity trading arrangements (NETA) and some other zone-pricing power markets. However, the research efforts in this field are very limited. Therefore, a kind of zone division problem is primarily studied in this paper. The concept of zone of a node set is proposed and defined as the minimum-girthed convex polygon containing these nodes, which can help us implement the proximity of nodes within groups in geographical locations. Furthermore, two combinatorial optimization models for given group number and minimizing the group number are built. Two algorithms based on tabu search (TS) and embedded by TS are developed to solve the models. Finally, the models are tested and proved by a real-life example from the northeastern grid of China. Compared to the existing methods, the proposed method is auto-operable and electrical-information based, and hence applicable.

The New Electricity Trading Arrangement (NETA) has been successfully applied to England and Wales since 2001. In this paper, the NETA transmission pricing approach is introduced in detail. According to NETA, the transmission charges consist of the connection charges, the Transmission Network Use of System (TNUoS) charges and the Balancing Services Use of System (BSUoS) charges. The calculation method of the TNUoS charges has some special characteristics, some of which are analyzed and proved theoretically. In China, there is no independent transmission price until now. It has restrained the further development of electricity industry reform. To test the efficiency and performance of NETA approach, we build the mathematical models for transmission charges of Northeastern Power Market by the NETA approach and some other traditional approaches. The computational comparison of these approaches and some helpful conclusions are reported. The results show us that some key parameters of NETA approach can be set conveniently. They can offer us some instructive economic signals for power markets.

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