Energy transition demand will elevate aluminium prices

Significance Aluminium smelters are being hampered by high power prices and shortages amid the switch towards green energy sources. China has been forced to start importing aluminium at record levels to tackle domestic shortages. Impacts The green energy transition will strain power markets, increasing the challenge of producing energy-intensive aluminium. Supply will gradually diversify as outputs stagnates in China but looks set to rise in Argentina, Brazil, the Middle East and Russia. Consumers and governments in importing nations will increase aluminium recovery and recycling to cut pressure on the supply chain.

Key Issues and Technical Applications in the Study of Power Markets as the System Adapts to the New Power System in China

To reach the “30·60” decarbonization target (where carbon emissions start declining in 2030 and reach net zero in 2060), China is restructuring its power system to a new energy-based one. Given this new situation, this paper reviews previous studies on the power market and highlights key issues for future research as we seek to adapt to the new power system (NPS). Based on a systematic literature review, papers on the operational efficiency of the power market, participants’ bidding strategies and market supervision were identified. In a further step, papers with high relevance were analyzed in more detail. Then, key studies that focused on market trading under China’s new power system were picked out for further discussion. New studies were searched for that pertained to new energy mechanisms and bidding, the transition from coal-fired power, flexible resources and the technical applications of simulations. The quantitative analysis supports the construction of a basic paradigm for the study of power markets that is suitable for the new power system. Finally, the theoretical basis and application suggestions for power market simulations are introduced. This study summarized the existing research on the power market and further explored the key issues relating to the power market as it adapts to the NPS, hoping to inspire better research into China’s power sector, and promote safe, low-carbon, and sustainable development in China’s power industry.

A survey on recent advances in transmission congestion management

For the last few decades, the power sector has been restructuring throughout the world, and because of this, congestion is bound to take place in the network. Congestion can lead to market failure, violate transmission capability limits and high electricity prices, and end up threatening the power systems’ reliability and security. Increased congestion may also lead to unexpected price differences in power markets leading to market power. In a deregulated power market (DPM), the independent system operator (ISO)’s fundamental challenge is to preserve the power market’s reliability and safety by improving market efficiency when the network is congested. Therefore, congestion management (CM) is essential in DPM and is the key to the power system. This paper carries out a congestion management methods survey to bring together all recent publications in the DPM. It aims to help readers summarize progressive CM methods, along with traditional CM methods that have been discussed so far. In this paper, we have carried out a comparative survey of the various well-known CM methods.

Contagions in interconnected power markets

PurposeThis paper offers an alternative approach to assessing contagions in price and load in the Australian interconnected power markets. This approach enabled us to identify a high-risk region and assess the direction of contagions from both buyers' and sellers' perspectives.Design/methodology/approachThe author used a multinomial logit method to measure contagions. Having identified the exceedance and coexceedances, the author estimated the multinomial logit coefficients of the covariates explaining the probability of a certain number of coexceedances.FindingsMarket participants should recognize the presence of contagion risk and scrutinize price and load dynamics in the NSW and VIC regions to anticipate any simultaneous extreme changes. Regulators need to stabilize the demand and supply sides in those regions to minimize any possible contagions.Originality/valueThis paper presents a pioneering study investigating contagion in the Australian interconnected power markets.

Impact of Remediation-Based Maintenance on the Reliability of a Coal-Fired Power Plant Using Generalized Stochastic Petri Nets

Rapid changes in electricity power markets have increased the production costs of coal-fired power plants and pushed their production to the limits of profitability. For power plants currently in operation, a possible approach to cope with this issue is to introduce novel methods that increase the plant’s reliability and availability. Coal mills are a subsystem that should ensure a plant’s availability without unexpected breakdowns. Remediation-based maintenance is defined as a set of actions performed after fault detection that do not require instant shutdown due to safety reasons. The aim of this paper was to provide a scientific confirmation that by implementing a novel remediation-based maintenance strategy, electricity production breakdowns can be significantly reduced. First, the performance of the proposed maintenance method was proved in simulation where coal mills were modeled by generalized stochastic Petri nets. The maintenance strategy was then experimentally verified in a 220 MW coal-fired power plant located in Croatia, where the plant’s availability, reliability and efficiency were increased.