Testing financial and real market operations in restructured electricity systems: four theoretical and empirical studies

To facilitate the U.S. wholesale electric power restructuring process and promote competitive market outcomes, in April 2003 the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) proposed a complicated market design called the Wholesale Power Market Platform (WPMP) for common adoption by all U.S. wholesale power markets. Despite the fact that versions of the WPMP have been widely implemented in many states, strong opposition to the WPMP persists among some industry stakeholders due largely to a perceived lack of adequate performance testing. In this dissertation, I apply analytical, statistical and agent-based computational simulation tools to analyze and test financial and real power market operations under the current WPMP design. The overall dissertation objective is to better understand how and to what extent the WPMP design facilitates to produce orderly, fair and efficient market outcomes. Four related studies have been undertaken to address four different issues at four different levels. Specifically, my first paper is a theoretical study of financial transmission right (FTR) markets. My second paper is an empirical study on the Midwest FTR market using statistical estimation tools. My third paper is an agent-based computational wholesale power market simulation study for systematic market design tests and market structure analyses. And my fourth paper is an optimization study in which I develop a Java-based DC OPF solver.