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Improvements to Modern Portfolio Theory based models applied to electricity systems

Theoretical Economics 2021-05-19 v1

Abstract

With the increase of variable renewable energy sources (VRES) share in electricity systems, manystudies were developed in order to determine their optimal technological and spatial mix. Modern PortfolioTheory (MPT) has been frequently applied in this context. However, some crucial aspects, important inenergy planning, are not addressed by these analyses. We, therefore, propose several improvements andevaluate how each change in formulation impacts results. More specifically, we address generation costs, system demand, and firm energy output, present a formal model and apply it to the case of Brazil. Wefound that, after including our proposed modifications, the resulting efficient frontier differs strongly fromthe one obtained in the original formulation. Portfolios with high output standard deviation are not ableto provide a firm output level at competitive costs. Furthermore, we show that diversification plays animportant role in smoothing output from VRES portfolios

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2105.08182,
  title  = {Improvements to Modern Portfolio Theory based models applied to electricity systems},
  author = {Gabriel Malta Castro and Claude Klöckl and Peter Regner and Johannes Schmidt and Amaro Olimpio Pereira},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.08182},
  year   = {2021}
}

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