The Effect of Renewable Energy Development and Market-Oriented Reform on Low-carbon Transformation of Power Industry: An Agent-Based Approach

With the development of renewable energy and deepening of market-oriented reforms, the low-carbon transformation of the power sector will be influenced by various factors such as market rules, individual investment preferences, and government planning. This will lead to the transformation process deviating from the optimal low-cost path, resulting in diverse development forms. To quantify the impact of these factors on the low-carbon transformation process, this paper constructs an agent-based model of electricity low-carbon transformation, which incorporates multi-entity market behavior of the power source-grid-load, power structure evolution, and government low-carbon development planning. Through scenario setting and numerical simulation, the changes in various parameters during the evolution process of regional power systems are explored. The case analysis shows that due to the difference in capacity cost and utilization rate, full-quantity price-guaranteed grid connection is more advantageous for photovoltaic power, while participating in the electricity market is more advantageous for wind power. The participation of renewable energy sources in the electricity market will gradually reduce the utilization hours of thermal power generators and help to lower the average electricity price, avoiding the transfer of the increased electricity generation cost due to thermal power carbon capture technology renovation to users, and bringing significant social benefits.