Events Calendar

Swapping Generators Assets: Market Salvation or Wishful Thinking

DANIEL J. EPSTEIN DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING SEMINAR:Title: "Swapping Generators' Assets: Market Salvation or Wishful Thinking" (Joint work with Tony Downward and David Young)Speaker: Golbon Zakeri, Co-Director of Electric Power Optimization Centre, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, Currently Visiting Scholar at the IEOR Department, UC BerkeleyABSTRACT: In April this year the New Zealand Commerce Commission released a review of the New Zealand Electricity Market (NZEM). This review, commonly referred to as the Wolak report, concluded that there was evidence of exercise of market power in the NZEM and was followed by a ministerial review of the NZEM. Both the Wolak report and the market review suggested a number of structural improvements for the NZEM. The likeliest structural change, suggest by both reviews, is a number of asset swap and divestiture option.I will present a review of the NZEM and the optimization and economic problems arising from it. I will talk briefly about the Wolak report and the background to the suggested structural changes from his report. I will then examine these suggestions in the frame work of simple Cournot models in presence of changing costs and line constraints. I will demonstrate that for our simple examples, these structural changes will achieve the opposite of what was intended!FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2009, ANDRUS GERONTOLOGY (GER) 309, 3:00 – 4:00 PM

Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - 309

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Georgia Lum