Our study integrates power sector modelling with hydrogen infrastructure analysis and life cycle assessment complementing research on power-to-gas pathway alternatives.

This paper analyses the economic and technical potential of the electric vehicle park for the provision of balancing reserve in the German energy market. Each individual electric vehicle is modelled separately considering all relevant techno-economic restrictions by means of a bottom up mixed integer linear optimisation algorithm. The objective is to maximize the electric vehicles' contribution margin in the context of Multi Market Operation considering the Day Ahead, the Intraday and the Balancing Reserve Markets at the same time. The economic benefits obtained with this approach significantly exceed the margin calculated in earlier topdown aggregation models. The value of different strategies and markets is assessed to identify the most beneficial options for electric vehicles. The findings presented suggest the possibility of favourable economics for balancing reserve services based on electric vehicles, which could create a positive momentum for electric vehicle uptake in Germany.

Electricity prices are the key instrument for coordinating electricity markets. For long-term market analyses, price determination based on fundamental unit commitment simulations is required. Within the European wholesale market, electricity prices result from a market clearing, which finds a welfare-optimal price–quantity tuple considering a coupling of multiple market areas with limited transmission capacity. With increasing exchange capacities in Europe, the precise modeling of the market coupling is required. Many market simulation models use multi-stage approaches with a separation of market coupling and price determination. In this paper, we analyze a new single-stage approach that combines both steps and theoretically and empirically demonstrate its precision by a backtest. For this purpose, we compare a simulated versus a historical electricity price distribution. Moreover, we explain the necessary adjustments for future regulatory developments of the European electricity market regarding flow-based market coupling and propose a concept for the application of future regulatory developments. We demonstrate further developments using a future scenario.

Fundamental unit commitment approaches are of central importance in energy system modeling for the generation of detailed power plant schedules. However, existing approaches, which reduce complexity in a multi-stage process, often fail to generate realistic electricity prices. A new type of singlestage approach considers market-coupling implicitly so that, in addition to detailed power plant schedules, electricity prices reflecting real prices very well can be generated. In this paper, we show in a back-test for 2014 that an endogenously modeled market-coupling is the driving factor for the quality of resulting electricity prices. Conversely, it can be concluded that conventional multi-stage approaches show a significant distortion of modeled electricity prices due to missing price signals from neighboring market zones. Against the background of expanding trading capacities between market zones within the European power system, this issue becomes increasingly relevant when fundamentally modeling energy prices.

No abstract