Optimal bidding strategies for generation companies in electricity markets with transmission capacity constraints taken into account

In the electricity market environment, how to build optimal bidding strategies has become a major concern for generation companies. The deficiency of transmission capacity could lead to congestion, and as a result, the whole electricity market can then be actually divided into two or more submarkets. A direct consequence of transmission congestion is the change of competitive positions of generation companies concerned in the electricity market, and the optimal bidding strategies of them should accordingly be changed. In this paper, the problem of developing optimal bidding strategies for generation companies is systematically investigated with transmission capacity constraints taken into account. A stochastic optimization model is first formulated under the presumption that the bidding behaviors of rival generation companies could be modeled as normal probability distributions. An approach is next presented for solving the optimization problem using the well-known Monte Carlo simulation method and the genetic algorithm. Finally, a simple sample example and the modified IEEE 14-bus system are employed to illustrate the essential features of the proposed model and method.