A Multi-Agent Simulation for the Electricity Spot Market

A multi-agent system designed to represent newly deregulated electricity markets in the USA is aimed at testing the capability of the multi-agent model to replicate the observed price behavior in the wholesale market and developing a smart business intelligence which quickly searches the optimum offer strategy responding to the change in market environments. Simulation results show that the optimum offer strategy is to withhold expensive generating units and submit relatively low offers when demand is low, regardless of firm size; the optimum offer strategy during a period of high demand is either to withhold capacity or speculate for a large firm, while it is to be a price taker a small firm: all in all, the offer pattern observed in the market is close to the optimum strategy. From the firm's perspective, the demand-side participation as well as the intense competition dramatically reduces the chance of high excess profit.