Agent-based price simulation of the German wholesale power market

Recent and future changes in the European power generation system have a big impact on the dispatch of hydraulic and thermal generation units and on the power market. Therefore, this paper investigates the simulation of realistic spot market prices by taking into account agent bidding behavior. An agent-based market simulation method is presented and benchmarked against historic prices of the year 2012 on the German wholesale power market. Simulating cost based bidding strategies enable the model to simulate realistic price curves as well in medium price as in peak price situations.