Kenneth Bruninx

KU Leuven | ku leuven · Department of Mechanical Engineering

This paper explores the economic justifications for policies to support climate-neutral hydrogen production, focusing on their interaction with energy markets and cap-and-trade systems such as the EU emission trading scheme. To investigate these issues, we develop and deploy a state-of-the-art equilibrium model that captures the interactions betwee...

Policy makers are formulating offshore energy infrastructure plans, including wind turbines, electrolyzers, and HVDC transmission lines. An effective market design is crucial to guide cost-efficient investments and dispatch decisions. This paper jointly studies the impact of offshore market design choices on the investment in offshore electrolyzers...

Policy makers are formulating offshore energy infrastructure plans, including wind turbines, electrolyzers, and HVDC transmission lines. An effective market design is crucial to guide cost-efficient investments and dispatch decisions. This paper jointly studies the impact of offshore market design choices on the investment in offshore electrolyzers...

While capacity remuneration mechanisms are emerging around the globe, a variety of capacity demand curves is being used. Poorly tuned capacity demand curves can, however, lead to expensive over- or underprocurement of capacity. This work provides a methodology to directly compare different capacity demand curve design methodologies, accurately refl...

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) may exploit the increasing price volatility in imbalance settlement mechanisms via inter-temporal arbitrage. However, participating in these markets requires a careful trade-off between expected profits, accounting for the impact of BESS actions on prevailing imbalance prices, the financial risks and the incurr...

Liberalized electricity markets promise a cost-efficient operation and expansion of power systems but may as well introduce opportunities for strategic gaming for price-making agents. Given the rapid transition of today’s energy systems, unconventional generation and consumption patterns are emerging, presenting new challenges for regulators and po...

Carbon Contracts for Difference (CCfD) are proposed as a complementary climate policy instrument to incentivise industrial decarbonization projects and mitigate financial risks. They can serve as both a de-risking instrument and a subsidy for projects such as the electrification of industrial heat and the use of hydrogen for the refining of metals...

The economic efficiency of distribution network tariffs may be enhanced by applying marginal cost pricing principles. This paper investigates the Long-Run Incremental Cost (LRIC) methodology, a marginal cost-based approach that has been applied in Great Britain since 2012. The long-term social welfare achieved under a coincident peak tariff set acc...

In competitive electricity markets the optimal trading problem of an electricity market agent is commonly formulated as a bi-level program, and solved as mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC). In this paper, an alternative paradigm, labeled as mathematical program with neural network constraint (MPNNC), is developed to incorporat...

In competitive electricity markets, the optimal bid or offer problem of a strategic agent is commonly formulated as a bi-level program and solved as a mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC). If the lower-level part of the problem can be well approximated as a convex problem, this approach leads to a global optimum. However, electr...

This paper formulates an energy community’s centralized optimal bidding and scheduling problem as a time-series scenario-driven stochastic optimization model, building on real-life measurement data. In the presented model, a surrogate battery storage system with uncertain state-of-charge (SoC) bounds approximates the portfolio’s aggregated flexibil...

CO2-neutral hydrogen may play a pivotal role in a decarbonized energy system as an energy carrier and feedstock in hard-to-abate sectors such as industry (e.g., iron & steel, chemicals) and long-haul transportation(e.g., aviation & shipping). Hydrogen, however, comes in many metaphorical “colors”, depending on its source of production, like “gray”...

The current energy transition promotes the convergence of operation between the power and natural gas systems. In that direction, it becomes paramount to improve the modeling of non-convex natural gas flow dynamics within the coordinated power and gas dispatch. In this work, we propose a neural-network-constrained optimization method which includes...

Both risk-averse behavior and strategic bidding may distort the outcome of energy and capacity markets. Although these two behavioral aspects may trigger similar bidding behavior and investments into generation capacity, they are fundamentally different. While in the literature risk-aversion and strategic behavior have been investigated separately,...

To represent the cross-border exchange capacities defined by the flow-based approach in the European resource adequacy assessments, transmission system operators currently employ a data-driven methodology that consists of sequential clustering and correlation steps. This methodology entails assumptions and simplifications within both clustering and...

This paper presents a chance constrained stochastic model predictive control (SMPC) approach for building climate control under combined parametric and additive uncertainties. The proposed SMPCap approach enables the quantification, and manipulation, of both the mean and covariance of the stochastic system states and inputs. Its enhanced uncertaint...

div>This paper formulates an energy community's centralized optimal bidding and scheduling problem as a time-series scenario-driven stochastic optimization model, building on real-life measurement data. In the presented model, a surrogate battery storage system with uncertain state-of-charge (SoC) bounds approximates the portfolio's aggregated flex...

In competitive electricity markets the optimal trading problem of an electricity market agent is commonly formulated as a bi-level program, and solved as mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC). In this paper, an alternative paradigm, labeled as mathematical program with neural network constraint (MPNNC), is developed to incorporat...

In order to facilitate the growing share of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in power systems around the world, a cost-effective integration of RES into the electricity market is essential. In addition to numerous technical challenges, the integration of RES-based generation creates some market design challenges. For example, monitoring market power...

The EU emissions trading system’s (ETS) invalidation rule implies that shocks and overlapping policies can change cumulative carbon emissions. This paper explains these mechanisms and simulates the effect of COVID-19, the European Green Deal, and the recovery stimulus package on cumulative EU ETS emissions and allowance prices. Our results indicate...

To represent the cross-border exchange capacities defined by the flow-based approach in the European resource adequacy assessments, transmission system operators currently employ a data-driven methodology that consists of sequential clustering and correlation steps. This methodology entails assumptions and simplifications within both clustering and...

In competitive electricity markets the optimal trading problem of an electricity market agent is commonly formulated as a bi-level program, and solved as mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC). In this paper, an alternative paradigm, labeled as mathematical program with neural network constraint (MPNNC), is developed to incorporat...

State-of-the-art trading strategies in short-term electricity markets employ risk awareness for reducing, inter alia, their exposure to the volatility of electricity prices. To ensure an optimal balance between risk and profit, risk-aversion parameters are traditionally fine-tuned via an offline out-of-sample analysis. Such a computationally-intens...

div>This paper formulates an energy community's centralized optimal bidding and scheduling problem as a time-series scenario-driven stochastic optimization model, building on real-life measurement data. In the presented model, a surrogate battery storage system with uncertain state-of-charge (SoC) bounds approximates the portfolio's aggregated flex...

European electricity markets are zonal markets, a set-up that naturally entails an imperfect representation of intra-zonal congestion patterns that may limit cross-border trade. The method of flow-based market coupling aims to reflect limitations to cross-border trade by incorporating intra- and interzonal grid elements within the setting of zonal...

An important aspect of long-term power system planning models is their adequacy awareness, i.e., their ability to ensure generation adequacy in the final solution, which in turn strongly depends on the level of temporal detail included in the model structure. To maintain computational tractability, the temporal detail included in long-term planning...

In competitive electricity markets the optimal trading problem of an electricity market agent is commonly formulated as a bi-level program, and solved as mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC). In this paper, an alternative paradigm, labeled as mathematical program with neural network constraint (MPNNC), is developed to incorporat...

In competitive electricity markets the optimal trading problem of an electricity market agent is commonly formulated as a bi-level program, and solved as mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC). In this paper, an alternative paradigm, labeled as mathematical program with neural network constraint (MPNNC), is developed to incorporat...

The cost-efficient integration of variable renewable power (vRES) requires adequate operating reserve and energy markets. This paper focusses on the benefits of increasing the temporal granularity of joint energy-operating reserve markets in a case study on two high-vRES systems. Specifically, the impact of the frequency (i.e., how often reserves a...

To reduce the computation time of Energy System Optimization Models and Generation Expansion Planning Models operational detail is typically limited to several hours, days, or weeks in a year selected using Time Series Aggregation methods. We compare time series aggregation methods and generation expansion planning models which aim to capture the v...

The resource adequacy of the interconnected Central Western Europe (CWE) electricity system is assessed considering the cross-border exchange capacities defined through the Flow-Based (FB) domains. Integration of FB domains into adequacy assessments poses several challenges since the FB domains depend on factors which are not known over the horizon...

div>This paper presents new risk-based constraints for the participation of an energy community in day-ahead and real-time energy markets. Forming communities offers indeed an effective way to manage the risk of the overall portfolio by pooling individual resources and associated uncertainties. However, the diversity of flexible resources and the r...

div>This paper presents new risk-based constraints for the participation of an energy community in day-ahead and real-time energy markets. Forming communities offers indeed an effective way to manage the risk of the overall portfolio by pooling individual resources and associated uncertainties. However, the diversity of flexible resources and the r...

Many regulators are pushing for more cost-reflective distribution network charges to inform end users of the grid infrastructure costs their behavior causes. Since future investment costs can be avoided by reducing simultaneous peak loads, forward-looking, coincident peak charges are often proposed. Under the assumption of convex network costs, it...

Power systems face more uncertainty by increasing photovoltaic system installations on the roof of buildings. To optimally manage energy and available flexibility in a building, stochastic optimization is used to take an optimal decision under uncertainty and minimize the operational cost. In stochastic optimization, a scenario set is used as an in...

Capacity credits, i.e., metrics that describe the contribution of different technologies in meeting the load during peak periods, are widely used in the context of long-term energy-system optimization models to ensure a pre-defined level of firm capacity. In the same vain, such capacity credits may be used in capacity markets to reflect the availab...

URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/233467 ABSTRACT: Flow-based market coupling provides zonal day-ahead markets with appropriate signals of possible real-time congestions by incorporating information on local load and generation patterns. It relies on predictive parameters, notably the base case and generation shift keys. Also it only monitors part...

Trading electricity across market zones furthers competitive power prices, security of supply and the integration of renewable energy. In the European Union, flow-based market coupling is the target model to compute correct trading capacities between markets, while approximating physical grid constraints. The methodology relies on predictive, caref...

The EU emissions trading system’s (ETS) invalidation rule implies that shocks and overlapping policies can change cumulative carbon emissions. This paper explains these mechanisms and simulates the effect of COVID-19, the European Green Deal, and the recovery stimulus package on cumulative EU ETS emissions and allowance prices. Our results indicate...

Securing profits from energy, reserve capacity and balancing markets is critical to ensure the profitability of battery energy systems (BES). However, the intimate connection between offers on these trading floors combined with the limited energy storage capacity of BES renders its scheduling very complex. In this paper, we develop a bilevel optimi...

Energy storage systems (ESS) may provide the required flexibility to cost-effectively integrate weather-dependent renewable generation, in particular by offering operating reserves. However, since the real-time deployment of these services is uncertain, ensuring their availability requires merchant ESS to fully reserve the associated energy capacit...

Trading electricity across market zones furthers competitive power prices, security of supply and the integration of power generation from renewable energy sources. However, trade is limited by the physical properties of the electricity grid. As a target model in the EU, flow-based market coupling is the currently preferred method to compute correc...

Many regulators are pushing for more cost-reflective distribution network charges to inform end users of the grid infrastructure costs their behavior causes. Since these costs are largely driven by simultaneous peak loads, coincident peak pricing is often proposed in this context. Under the assumption of convex network costs, it has been shown that...

The possibly increasing volatile gas off-take from gas-fired power plants to accommodate volatile renewable generation in combination with the integration of power-to-gas (P2G) warrants further study into the operation of a coupled electrical power and natural gas system. Therefore, this paper presents and validates a novel operational model compri...

Abandoned underground quarries or mines may be rehabilitated as natural reservoirs for underground pumped-hydro energy storage (UPHES). In addition to the inherent modeling inaccuracies of traditional PHES that arise from, e.g., approximating the nonlinear pump/turbine head-dependent performance curves, the optimal operation of these underground pl...

To cope with the variability and uncertainty introduced by, i.a., intermittent renewable energy sources, the flexible planning and operation of generation units is crucial. Their reaction time is constrained by the lead times on the start-up decisions, whereas the demand for flexibility and operating reserves depends on the market clearing frequenc...

To provide a strong price signal for greenhouse gas emissions abatement, Europe decided to strengthen the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) by implementing a market stability reserve (MSR) that includes a cancellation policy and to increase the linear reduction factor from 1.74% to 2.2% after 2020. Results of a detailed long-term inv...

With the Phase 4 cancellation provision, the cumulative emissions cap of the EU ETS has become dependent on the number of surplus allowances and future emissions abatement costs. In this paper, we discuss how the design of the market stability reserve greatly increases uncertainty over cumulative emissions and implies that there will be more cancel...

Energy storage Systems (ESS) may play a pivotal role in the cost-efficient integration of renewable energy sources. Integrating large volumes of grid-scale energy storage into electricity markets, however, raises questions related to their profitability and impact on electricity prices. This paper explores the implications of different bid structur...

To decarbonize the heating sector, residential consumers may install heat pumps. Coupled with heating loads with high thermal inertia, these thermostatically controlled loads may provide a significant source of demand side flexibility. Since the capacity of residential consumers is typically insufficient to take part in the day-ahead electricity ma...