A. Stephen McGough

Alexander J. M. Kell, A. Stephen McGough, Matthew Forshaw

A lowering in the cost of batteries and solar PV systems has led to a high uptake of solar battery home systems. In this work, we use the deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm to optimise the charging and discharging behaviour of a battery within such a system. Our approach outputs a continuous action space when it charges and discharges the battery, and can function well in a stochastic environment. We show good performance of this algorithm by lowering the expenditure of a single household on electricity to almost \$1AUD for large batteries across selected weeks within a year.

Alexander J. M. Kell, A. Stephen McGough, Matthew Forshaw

Electricity supply must be matched with demand at all times. This helps reduce the chances of issues such as load frequency control and the chances of electricity blackouts. To gain a better understanding of the load that is likely to be required over the next 24h, estimations under uncertainty are needed. This is especially difficult in a decentralized electricity market with many micro-producers which are not under central control. In this paper, we investigate the impact of eleven offline learning and five online learning algorithms to predict the electricity demand profile over the next 24h. We achieve this through integration within the long-term agent-based model, ElecSim. Through the prediction of electricity demand profile over the next 24h, we can simulate the predictions made for a day-ahead market. Once we have made these predictions, we sample from the residual distributions and perturb the electricity market demand using the simulation, ElecSim. This enables us to understand the impact of errors on the long-term dynamics of a decentralized electricity market. We show we can reduce the mean absolute error by 30% using an online algorithm when compared to the best offline algorithm, whilst reducing the required tendered national grid reserve required. This reduction in national grid reserves leads to savings in costs and emissions. We also show that large errors in prediction accuracy have a disproportionate error on investments made over a 17-year time frame, as well as electricity mix.

Alexander J. M. Kell, Matthew Forshaw, A. Stephen McGough

Decentralized electricity markets are often dominated by a small set of generator companies who control the majority of the capacity. In this paper, we explore the effect of the total controlled electricity capacity by a single, or group, of generator companies can have on the average electricity price. We demonstrate this through the use of ElecSim, a simulation of a country-wide energy market. We develop a strategic agent, representing a generation company, which uses a deep deterministic policy gradient reinforcement learning algorithm to bid in a uniform pricing electricity market. A uniform pricing market is one where all players are paid the highest accepted price. ElecSim is parameterized to the United Kingdom for the year 2018. This work can help inform policy on how to best regulate a market to ensure that the price of electricity remains competitive. We find that capacity has an impact on the average electricity price in a single year. If any single generator company, or a collaborating group of generator companies, control more than ${\sim}$11$\%$ of generation capacity and bid strategically, prices begin to increase by ${\sim}$25$\%$. The value of ${\sim}$25\% and ${\sim}$11\% may vary between market structures and countries. For instance, different load profiles may favour a particular type of generator or a different distribution of generation capacity. Once the capacity controlled by a generator company, which bids strategically, is higher than ${\sim}$35\%, prices increase exponentially. We observe that the use of a market cap of approximately double the average market price has the effect of significantly decreasing this effect and maintaining a competitive market. A fair and competitive electricity market provides value to consumers and enables a more competitive economy through the utilisation of electricity by both industry and consumers.