Genscape : Plant Operational Patterns – Are They Always Driven by Wholesale Power Market Prices?

Power plant managers are continuously looking for ways to increase earnings by optimising plant operations. In order to do so they provide ancillary services, follow re-dispatch instructions, or generate power for the wholesale market. It can be challenging to recognise such products and services behind the operational patterns.

Traders and portfolio managers alike must rely on a number of market fundamentals to identify profitable trading strategies. One such market fundamental is generation aggregated by fuel type or technology. It is even better when such aggregated figures are put into context, such as comparing and benchmarking today's generation against yesterday's figures.

It is of great importance for all types of market participants - hedge funds, trading houses, and utilities alike - to understand both the aggregated generation by fuel type or technology and also the specific generation profile of individual plants, as these factor into actual market prices.

Market Fundamentals

Power plants play an important role to the overall understanding of these fundamentals. Is the unit reacting purely to wholesale market prices, or does the plant provide system services as well? Is it involved in re-dispatch ordered by the respective TSO, or probably supporting the portfolio management of the owner/operator? The answers vary by market and by case.

Getting generation data from public sources in the right format and aggregated by fuel type is already a major challenge. It can be difficult to collect generation data on individual power plants, especially if you need raw data ready for further processing, as shown in Figure 1. If you want to differentiate operational patterns of power plants, you need to combine granular data and easy-to-read visualisation.

Identifying Commercial Optimisation Strategies with PowerRT

​Genscape's PowerRT™ brings together a comprehensive view of European power markets in a web-based platform, updating in near-real-time. As a one-of-a-kind flexible workspace for visualising power market information, PowerRT provides access to the plant information that enables the commercial optimisation strategy analysis for the long- and short-terms, as well as weekly and seasonal patterns of operation.

Specific capabilities in PowerRT, like Multiple Monitored Entities charting or the Generation Comparison as shown in Figure 2, allow users to compare individual generation patterns of various plants. This helps determine which plants are price-driven or 'going with the flow,' and which ones provide system services or 'generate against the current.' Regular use of these functions can provide a better understanding of more refined functions, such as one-off portfolio management actions (e.g. helping out another plant with scheduling a start-up) or the ability to catch more frequent involvement in re-dispatch activities.

​Operators of Conventional Generation and Virtual Power Plants

Utilities operating conventional generation, and aggregators optimising Virtual Power Plants, have multiple reasons to be interested in specific plants' activation points (like starting up, shutting down, or simply changing output) to boost their chances of improving bidding performance. PowerRT's capability to zoom in on a single day, with resolution set to five-minute averages in the Generation Comparison chart's drilldown, provides a simple solution for competitive analysis. The graph in Figure 3 shows a specific selection of German coal fired power plants in the morning peak that are ramping up and down.

The corresponding day-ahead and intraday prices in Figure 4 might raise the question as to why some plants, like Zolling or Rostock, ramped down around 7:00AM CEST on December 7, exactly when day-ahead prices exceeded 50 EUR/MWh. Zolling continued to decrease its output again around 16:00 CEST, when prices rose compared to the previous hours' values. These plants could be participating in the ancillary services market to lock in additional profits or be involved in the re-dispatch.

PowerRT's unique insights and easy-to-read visualisation enable you to improve your portfolio's performance and trading activities' profitability. A quick comparison of individual plants' productions can boost your bidding performance, especially involving the plants that set market prices frequently! The platform provides market intelligence from comprehensive proprietary and fundamental data, allowing users to stay on top of fast-changing market conditions. Please click here to get in touch with our team if you would like more information about PowerRT's unique capabilities.