Workshop on Competitiveness of Nuclear Power and Other Energy Technologies in Restructured Electricity Markets

Monday, December 3 - Friday, December 14, 2007
Argonne National Laboratory, Building 223, 9700 South Cass Ave., Argonne, IL, USA

Organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and co-sponsored by the U.S. government, this course is hosted by Argonne's Educational Division in cooperation with the DIS Center for Energy, Environmental, and Economic Systems Analysis. Participating countries and experts are selected and invited by the IAEA. This course is for public sector nominees from IAEA's member states. A limited number of additional participants may attend, subject to space limitations.

Overview: Countries around the world continue to restructure their electricity markets and open them up to competition and private investors. The main objectives of this effort are to reduce financial burden on the public sector, attract private capital, and achieve higher economic efficiency. However, the recent volatility exhibited by many restructured electricity markets, in combination with several prominent market failures, has highlighted the need for a better understanding of the complex interactions among the various market participants and the emerging overall market behavior.

Advanced modeling approaches are needed that simulate the behavior of electricity markets over time and model how market participants may act and react to changes in the underlying economic, financial, and regulatory environments. This capability is particularly useful for developing sound market rules that will allow these markets to function properly, while at the same time will ensure meeting the national objectives for future development of the electricity sector.

A new and promising approach involves modeling electricity markets as complex adaptive systems using an agent-based modeling and simulation approach. Argonne National Laboratory has used these techniques in developing the Electricity Market Complex Adaptive System (EMCAS) software. By using this unique approach, EMCAS provides the ability to capture and investigate the complex interactions between the physical infrastructures (generation, transmission, and distribution) and the economic/commercial behavior of market participants, which are hallmarks of newly emerging markets. This simulation will help evaluate competitiveness of nuclear power and other energy options under different market conditions.

Format and Topics: During the workshop, participants will learn the basic features of the EMCAS software. Standardized case studies will allow attendees to test various market strategies and market rules and their impact on the emerging market behavior. In addition to lectures and work sessions, real-time market simulations will be used to reinforce the information presented in the lectures. In these simulations, participants will compete against each other by developing, testing, and refining their own market strategies.

Expected Outcome: At the end of the course, participants are expected to have developed (1) an understanding of how various restructured electricity markets operate; (2) a simple case analysis of a competitive market; (3) the ability to begin an analysis of their own country’s market development; and (4) an understanding of how various technologies, such as nuclear power, renewables, or distributed generation might be part of a competitive market.

Course Dates: The course runs from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday, December 3, 2007, to Friday, December 14, 2007.

Course Instructors/Speaker List

• Audun Botterud
• Richard Cirillo
• Guenter Conzelmann
• Vladimir Koritarov
• Charles Macal
• Michael North
• Mary Ongenae
• Prakash Thimmapuram
• Tom Veselka
• Jianhui Wang
• External speakers (IAEA, FERC, others)

Course Schedule

Directions and Accommodations: Argonne is located in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, IL. If you arrive by plane, you can fly into O'Hare International Airport or Midway Airport. Both airports are about the same distance from the laboratory. With normal traffic, you may need 30-45 minutes from either airport to Argonne.

Please click here to get a local map for your orientation.

Course participants typically stay at the Argonne Guest House.

For more information, contact Guenter Conzelmann.