Impact of emissions cost on the mid-term generation scheduling in the Greek Electricity Market

Abstract

The EU Emissions Trading Scheme, Europe's main mechanism for implementing EU climate policy, is driving thermal electricity generation units to incorporate their emissions cost into their variable costs. In this paper, we investigate the impact of this incorporation on the mid-term (yearly) performance of the Greek Electricity Market. To carry out our investigation, we iteratively solve the day-ahead market problem for 365 days, assuming that the generation units internalize the emissions cost in their bids. In order to provide a realistic estimate for the market performance, we use a set of input data that is based on a projection of the current data onto the year 2013. We examine three different scenarios for the prices of gas and oil, which are used to fuel some of the thermal generation units, and seven scenarios for the CO2 prices. To enhance the confidence in our results, we perform a sensitivity analysis of the market performance with respect to outages. We conclude by discussing the major insights and potential extensions of this work.