The impact of microeconomic decisions in electricity market modelling on load flows in transmission grids

Europe's transmission grids are confronted with increasing numbers of congestions due to multiple reasons leading to rising distances of generation and demand, such as renewable energy sources, which substitute generation from thermal and hydraulic power. Furthermore, planned measures of grid expansion are frequently delayed, resulting in higher flows within the existing network topology which need to be handled by grid operation measures. Due to these changes, the consideration of the impact of market results on the transmission grid is of rising importance when investigating load flows in transmission grid systems. In this paper, an existing agent-based simulation of the electricity market is extended. First, the integration of electricity storage with hydro power plants is improved by a hydro dispatch optimisation, accounting for cascading of multiple units with multiple reservoirs. Second, an AC load flow approach is incorporated to investigate the resulting load flows in the transmission grid in Germany.