Investing in generation and storage capacity in a liberalised electricity market: An agent based approach

The power sector is undergoing a period of significant change, in terms of the mix of generation technologies, as well as the structure of energy markets, regulation and assets ownership. The shift to a more liberalised electricity system has resulted in an increase in the number of decision makers. This paper demonstrates an agent-based approach for investigating the long-term investment in the GB power generation sector, whilst considering the operability of the system. A key focus of this study is to investigate the efficacy of a range of policies to reduce the emissions and facilitate investment in renewable generation and battery storage. In order to capture the value of battery storage, the hourly operation of the electricity system, considering short-term variation of demand, renewable generation and wholesale electricity prices (including negative prices during high renewable and low demand events), was incorporated in the long-term investment model. The modelling results show while the cost of battery storage is expected to decrease gradually in future, a substantial subsidy is still required to justify investment in battery storage. The deployment of battery storage provides a significant reduction in the overall power generation system cost, peak demand and carbon emissions.