The Hub brings together research on electricity markets from across the mathematical, engineering and social sciences, connecting this to policy debates and wider society.
Since their introduction in the early 1990s, liberalised markets have become a central means of organising our electricity systems. Many countries have moved away from state planning, undertaking competition reforms and introducing pricing methodologies with the aim of more efficiently coordinating flows of energy and stimulating investment in new capacity.
However, electricity systems are currently undergoing a fundamental transformation as increasing amounts of variable renewables such as wind and solar are connected to grids. This increases price volatility and the costs of operating the transmission networks. At the same time, the electrification of heating and transport is increasing demand for power, while the move away from gas generation will require new forms of flexibility to be developed to balance systems and deliver resilience.
These technological transitions are increasing the complexity of our electricity systems, calling into question the ability of traditional market models to drive the transition to net zero. As a result, initiatives to fundamentally reform electricity markets are underway across many countries globally.
Through the Electricity Markets Research Hub we seek to connect rigorous and original academic research with these policy debates and to build expertise on the technical design and societal implications of future electricity markets amongst key stakeholders.
Our work is at the cutting edge of several areas of research on electricity markets:
- Improving optimisation tools which underpin electricity markets and balancing mechanisms
- Developing open-source whole system models which can test different electricity market designs
- Exploring the implications of AI for electricity system operators and market participants
- Investigating policy and regulatory aspects of electricity markets
Contact
Dr Ronan Bolton: Ronan.Bolton@ed.ac.uk.
People:
Dr Ronan Bolton, Reader, Social and Political Science
The political and societal aspects of electricity market design and regulatory reform. He has made contributions to the history and public understanding of electricity markets. He collaborates with an international group of social scientists investigating the Crisis of Energy Markets.
Prof Chris Dent, Professor, Mathematics
Decision support analysis in the energy, infrastructure and government sectors. His research is on the boundary between energy systems analysis and the mathematical sciences, with particular emphasis on security of supply risk analysis and the use of computer modelling to support policy decisions.
Andrew Lyden, Lecturer, Engineering
His research focus is on advancing open-source energy system science including data, models, and outputs. He is currently developing models of wholesale electricity markets using ‘Python for Power System Analysis’ (PyPSA).
Dr Lars Schewe, Reader, Mathematics
Operational Research applied to energy markets and networks. His research is focusing on mixed-integer nonlinear optimization with applications in energy. He has worked both on the optimization of the design and operation of energy networks and mathematical models of energy.
