Models and Tools - Powers

The POWERS simulates the Dutch wholesale electricity market within a Northwest European context. The POWERS model was developed in 2001 to analyse the liberalized Dutch electricity market, incorporating the new structure of the electricity market and the increasing competition between energy companies. POWERS is one of the two frequently used and well validated electricity market models developed by ECN. The other model is COMPETES.

The POWERS model is based on the system dynamics. This means that the decisions regarding production volume, plant capacity allocation, and price setting made by each market player is based on information from the previous period. POWERS features a detailed load and demand pattern (156 instances per year) and is able to analyse the entire period 1998-2040 in one run. POWERS is coupled to the detailed industry/CHP model Save-Production with the result that the industrial heat and electricity demand is taken into account in a consistent way and that both centralised and decentralised production is covered in detail. Apart from providing wholesale electricity prices to the Save-Production CHP model, POWERS also uses results from Save-Production, namely on industrial electricity demand and generation with decentralised CHP. To achieve equilibrium on the electricity market, the two models have to perform several iterations, until electricity prices, electricity demand and CHP production remain nearly constant. This takes three to four iterations at most to establish convergence in case of an entirely new scenario. For existing scenarios, one or two iterations suffice. Both models can also be run stand-alone, which is particularly suited for sensititivity and what-if analyses. In this way, the impact of important future uncertain factors can be analysed efficiently. Small scale renewable electricity generation (e.g. on-shore wind, hydro, waste incineration (AVI’s)) is also linked into the POWERS model. Large scale renewable options like offshore wind energy, biomass co-firing in coal power plants, or large stand alone biomass power plants are modelled in POWERS.

The model was extended in 2004 to support the new Reference Projections for the Netherlands (up to 2020 and the long-term scenario WLO study (up to 2040. The current model contains:

• A detailed description of the power generation capacity of the current market players in the Netherlands,
• Current and future interconnections with Belgium, France, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom,
• Supply and demand curves for these neighbouring countries (less detailed than the Netherlands’ system), and
• Linkages to detailed electricity demand and sectoral models for the Netherlands (industry, refineries, horticulture, households and services, transport).

Among other purposes the model is suitable for determining:

• Outlooks for forward prices on the Dutch wholesale electricity market,
• The electricity production mix of the Dutch power sector based on the power generation capacity, electricity demand and price developments,
• Import and export flows of electricity,
• A consistent coupling with decentralized CHP plants, and
• CO2 emissions.
• Air quality emissions like NOx, SO2 and particulate matter (PM10), based on the fuel mix from electricity production

Results are usually aggregated into yearly or averaged values to serve reference projections and long term scenario studies. However, results can also be viewed in more detail (e.g. at week and three load levels: super-peak, peak and off-peak).

The model takes into account investments in new generation capacity, development in fuel prices, and CO2 emission permit prices. These exogenous inputs can be defined scenario specific, which makes the model quite flexible to use for a broad envelope of possible future developments. The model has been validated against historic operating experience with respect to the actual electricity production and fuel mix, CO2  emissions, and spot market prices for the period 2000-2004. In addition, using forward fuel and CO2 prices, resulting electricity prices have been compared to the corresponding forward electricity prices.
Another way of cross-validating the POWERS model has been to compare its results with the other more pan-European electricity market model of ECN, the COMPETES model.

A more detailed model description is available in Dutch. 

Find more information about the POWERS model on:

• Uses of the model in recent projects
• Publications

For more information please contact Ad Seebregts.