This thesis reports findings from a number of modern machine learning techniques applied to electricity market price forecasting. The techniques evaluated were Support Vector Machines, Boosting, Bayesian networks, neural networks and a weekly average method. All techniques were evaluated on seven day into the future forecasting of the Regional Reference (pool) Prices (RRP) for the New South Wales (NSW) region of the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM). Due to highly volatile and non-repetitive nature of the NSW RRP, all complex machine learning methods provided inferior accuracy forecasts compared to a weekly average method. The weekly average method was computationally less expensive and more transparent to the user than any of the machine learning techniques. The Support Vector Machine (SVM) was chosen for its novel application to electricity price forecasting because it is considered to be the next generation to neural networks. The structured SVM training algorithm proved more consistent and reliable than the neural network algorithm. Bayesian networks offer the adaptability of a neural network with the advantage of providing a price forecast with confidence intervals for each half-hour determined from the actual data. The SVM and Bayesian techniques were found to provide acceptable forecasts for NSW demand. An investigation of international electricity markets found that each market was unique with different market structures, regulations, network topologies and ownership regimes. Price forecasting techniques and results cannot be universally applied without careful consideration of local conditions. For instance, price data for the Spanish and Californian electricity markets were investigated and found to have significantly lower price volatility than the NSW region of the NEM. An extensive examination of the NSW RRP showed that the price exhibited no consistent long-term trend. A stationary data set could not be extracted from the price data. Thus, making forecasting unsuited to techniques using large historical data sets. The strongest pattern found for NSW prices was the weekly cycle, so a weekly average method was developed to utilise this weekly cycle. Over 25 weeks of NSW RRP from February to July 2002, the seven day into the future price forecast mean absolute error (MAE) for the SVM technique was 27.8%. The weekly average method was more accurate with an MAE of 20.6% and with a simple linear price adjustment for demand, the error was reduced to 18.1%. The price spikes and uneven distribution of prices were unsuitable for the Boosting or Bayesian network techniques.

The deregulation of the electricity industry has introduced many opportunities as well as challenges to the once monopolised industry. This recent reform towards a competitive electricity industry advocates a need for charging energy losses to market participants through a more satisfactory and transparent mechanism. Market participants, whether they are generators or consumers, would want a loss allocation scheme that is able to reflect each market participants' contribution of generation or usage in the network. However, as electricity is an indistinguishable entity, there is no accurate method to trace the flow of electricity thus far. Hence, the issue of power loss allocation within the deregulated market still remains an unresolved setback to progress to a fully competitive electricity market. Many loss allocation methods have been introduced, however, none have been universally accepted. This thesis investigates existing power flow tracing and loss allocation methods in order to critically analyse the advantages and disadvantages of each method. They include loss allocation methods currently employed in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) and Great Britain Market, as well as a selection of better known loss allocation methods that are introduced in the academic research field. Understanding of these methods makes it easier to choose a method that is more suitable for each electricity market. Many researchers believe that a resolution is through a fair and equitable allocation of losses. However, the definition of “fair and equitable” varies from one literature to another. In general, a fair and equitable loss allocation method should meet electrical laws as well as economical laws. This is because market driven transactions have become the new independent decision variables that define the behaviour of electric power systems. This definition is then used as the basis to assess the results obtained from the implementation of each existing method analysed. It was found that a key limitation of existing methods is the lack of a method that is able to trace the usage allocation of each generator to each load in an electrically justifiable manner. Any improvement to existing loss allocation methods should address this limitation. Thus, the main objective of this thesis is to present two transaction based methods that have been developed and tested by the author of this thesis. Fundamentally, both methods hold the capability to analyse losses involved in the transfer of power from one point of the network to another point. The first investigated method is based on the network reduction method, where a system is reduced to the nodes of interest. The second method is based on the loop frame of reference. Instead of representing the network flows through the commonly accepted nodal frame of reference, power flows within the network are instead expressed as the sum of power flows around loops that links loads to active sources. This provides the loop-based method with an advantage in which it allows the power requirements of a load to be viewed as emanating from an active source and also the advantage of assessing the viability of contract agreements within a hybrid market model. The final objective of this thesis is to analytically compare selected existing loss allocation schemes with the proposed loop-based method. As there are no standard means of judging the accuracy of any loss allocation methods, the author of this thesis proposed a different way to distinguish different loss allocation methods. That is, through the type of competition that each method promotes. A wide range of results is obtained in which the loss allocations of some methods are dependent only on the real power injection at each bus. On the other hand, the loss allocations of other methods such as the loop-based method are dependent on network operation efficiency. The comprehension of the different type of competitions each method promotes aims to assist market regulators in recognising the feasibility of employing each loss allocation method.

This thesis reports findings from a number of modern machine learning techniques applied to electricity market price forecasting. The techniques evaluated were Support Vector Machines, Boosting, Bayesian networks, neural networks and a weekly average method. All techniques were evaluated on seven day into the future forecasting of the Regional Reference (pool) Prices (RRP) for the New South Wales (NSW) region of the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM). Due to highly volatile and non-repetitive nature of the NSW RRP, all complex machine learning methods provided inferior accuracy forecasts compared to a weekly average method. The weekly average method was computationally less expensive and more transparent to the user than any of the machine learning techniques. The Support Vector Machine (SVM) was chosen for its novel application to electricity price forecasting because it is considered to be the next generation to neural networks. The structured SVM training algorithm proved more consistent and reliable than the neural network algorithm. Bayesian networks offer the adaptability of a neural network with the advantage of providing a price forecast with confidence intervals for each half-hour determined from the actual data. The SVM and Bayesian techniques were found to provide acceptable forecasts for NSW demand. An investigation of international electricity markets found that each market was unique with different market structures, regulations, network topologies and ownership regimes. Price forecasting techniques and results cannot be universally applied without careful consideration of local conditions. For instance, price data for the Spanish and Californian electricity markets were investigated and found to have significantly lower price volatility than the NSW region of the NEM. An extensive examination of the NSW RRP showed that the price exhibited no consistent long-term trend. A stationary data set could not be extracted from the price data. Thus, making forecasting unsuited to techniques using large historical data sets. The strongest pattern found for NSW prices was the weekly cycle, so a weekly average method was developed to utilise this weekly cycle. Over 25 weeks of NSW RRP from February to July 2002, the seven day into the future price forecast mean absolute error (MAE) for the SVM technique was 27.8%. The weekly average method was more accurate with an MAE of 20.6% and with a simple linear price adjustment for demand, the error was reduced to 18.1%. The price spikes and uneven distribution of prices were unsuitable for the Boosting or Bayesian network techniques.

Examensarbetet innefattade ekonomiska beräkningar gällande införskaffande av sol- samt vindkraftsproduktion för en ö i Luleå skärgård som fungerar vid ö-drift gentemot kostnaden för att flyga ut ett reservaggregat i tre delar med helikopter. En förenklad kostnadskalkyl utfördes gällande investering samt underhåll för den förnyelsebara elproduktionen och dess nuvärde sett till 25-års livslängd för vindkraft såväl som solkraft. Detta vägdes mot utgifterna för utflygning av ett reservaggregat med helikopter som är den reservkraftslösning som finns att tillgå i dagsläget. Beräkningar av kortslutningseffekt med den förnyelsebara produktionen och hur det påverkar felbortkopplingar samt spänningsnivåer togs också med. Den ekonomiska investeringen kom också att vägas mot kundnyttan i form av ökad trygghetskänsla med en färdig reservkraftslösning samt fortsatt utveckling för företaget inom förnyelsebar energi. Uppdraget begränsades till att innefatta två olika scenarion med förnyelsebar energi, ett med 100 % solkraft och ett med cirka 10 kW vindkraft och 35 kW solkraft. Solcellssystemet kom att vara fristående på markställning vriden direkt mot söder med lämplig vinkling på solcellspanelerna. För scenarierna användes färdiga produktionslösningar samt färdiga batterilösningar för att behålla visst överskott av produktion till senare behov samt ett nät med nog låg spänningsvariation samt hög frekvensstabilitet under kortare tid. Kortare tid i detta fall gällde mellan 3 timmar upp till 3 veckor. Projektet tog effektbehovsdata samt möjliga meteorologiska data från en ö i Luleå Skärgård som ligger i skärgårdsnätet. Där fanns det 38 kunder där majoriteten hade kraftbehov under årets varmare månader, med några få kunder som var där nästan året runt. Ön kommer hädanefter refereras till som driftplatsen i rapporten. Den meteorologiska data som ej fanns att tillgå på driftplatsen togs vid närmaste väderstation, i detta fall Luleå stad. Sett till instrålningsdata samt avlästa vindhastigheter visade det sig att en produktionsanläggning med endast solcellspaneler och minst 12 h batteribank inte var realistisk som reservkraftlösning vid möjlig ö-drift vintertid. En större batteribank på 3 dygns försörjning skulle inte vara ekonomiskt försvarbar jämfört med investeringskostnaden till produktionsanläggningen, och det skulle trots det inte avhjälpa de produktionsproblem som var aktuella under vinterhalvåret. En kombination av solkraft och vindkraft med 3h batteriförsörjning kompletterade varandra väl till effektbehoven som återfanns på driftplatsen, klarade av de kraven som ställdes gällande variation i spänning och möjliga överströmmar samt skulle möjliggöra elförsörjning året runt.

District heat is currently more exposed for competition than it has been for several years. Since the mid-1980s, district heat has dominated the heat market, but is now in a tougher competitive situation due to the increasing popularity of heat pumps. This, in combination with energy efficiency, has led to a stagnation of delivered energy. The purpose of the study is to investigate the district heating's current competitive situation in Västerås. This will be investigated based on pricing, performance and paragraphs. In order to get a comprehensive picture of the heat market and to find out what factors customers prioritize, housing companies, house makers and villa owners were interviewed. The study's results show that house owners prioritize delivery reliability, followed by economy and environment in the choice of heating method. Actors' views on pricing were different depending on the preferred heating method, where the different views were primarily about the operating and maintenance costs of heat pumps. In order to analyze pricing the life cycle cost was calculated on the basis of real cases. This was done by creating a calculation model in Excel. The result of pricing shows that district heating was the best option for all cases. However, from a new construction perspective, geothermal heat pump for small houses had similar life cycle cost as district heating, while district heating was superior in price for the larger houses. All cases when a customer had change from district heat to heat pumps were unprofitable due to the switching cost that arises. Performance was evaluated by the environmental impact and delivery reliability of the methods. The consequential life cycle assessment was used when calculating environmental impact. The result showed that the district heating in Västerås has a positive environmental impact because of the social benefits it provides. Heat pumps had a negative impact on the environment in all cases. The delivery reliability was studied through actors' views in combination with scientific research, which resulted in the view that district heating is better. The evaluation of paragraph was limited to Boverket’s building regulations. The competitive situation is currently skewed, where heat pumps have a big advantage as houses can limit their energy efficiency with heat pumps. The future of district heating in Västerås is bright. The challenge is to keep their market domination by maintaining a competitive price as the heat market is facing changes with reduced heat demand and tougher competition. / Fjärrvärmen är idag mer konkurrensutsatt än den har varit på flera år. Sedan mitten av 1980-talet har fjärrvärmen dominerat värmemarknaden, men är nu i en tuffare konkurrenssituation bland annat på grund av den ökande populariteten av värmepumpar. Dessutom har energieffektivisering och tuffare krav lett till en stagnation av levererad värme. Syftet med studien är att undersöka fjärrvärmens nuvarande konkurrenssituation i Västerås. Detta ska undersökas utifrån de tre konkurrensmedlen prissättning, prestanda och paragrafer. För att få en heltäckande bild av värmemarknaden samt att ta reda på vilka faktorer kunder prioriterar i valet av uppvärmningsmetod intervjuades bostadsföretag, hustillverkare och småhusägare. Studiens resultat visar att fastighetsägare prioriterar leveranssäkerhet, följt av ekonomi och miljö i valet av uppvärmningsmetod. Trots att samtliga lyfter fram ekonomi som den avgörande faktorn i valet, berodde det på att leveranssäkerheten antogs vara relativt lika mellan uppvärmningsmetoderna. Miljön har ett visst inflytande, dock så länge det inte innebär en allt för hög ekonomisk kostnad. Aktörers syn på prissättning var olika beroende på föredragen uppvärmningsmetod, där de skilda åsikterna främst gällde värmepumpars drift- och underhållskostnader. För att behandla prissättning opartiskt beräknades livscykelkostnaden för de valda uppvärmningsmetoderna utifrån verkliga fall. Detta gjordes genom att skapa ett beräkningsverktyg i kalkylprogrammet Excel där indata kan varieras. Resultatet av den ekonomiska kartläggningen visar att för samtliga fall var fjärrvärmen billigast. Ur ett nyproduktionsperspektiv hade dock bergvärmepump för småhus i princip samma livscykelkostnad som fjärrvärme, medan för de större fastigheterna var fjärrvärmen relativt överlägsen gällande pris. Samtliga konverterande fall där fastighetsägare bytt uppvärmningsmetod var olönsamma, detta på grund av den konverteringskostnad som uppstår. Konkurrensmedlet prestanda undersöktes genom metodernas miljöpåverkan och leveranssäkerhet. Vid beräkning av miljöpåverkan användes konsekvensperspektivet. Resultatet visade att fjärrvärmen i Västerås har en positiv miljöpåverkan på grund av samhällsnyttan den ger, medan värmepumpar i samtliga fall hade en negativ påverkan. För undersökningen av leveranssäkerhet involverades de två aspekterna driftsäkerhet och enkelhet. Detta gjordes genom att studera aktörers syn i kombination med tidigare forskning, vilket resultera i att fjärrvärme är bättre. Undersökning av paragrafer avgränsades till Boverkets byggregler som sätter kraven för fastigheters energiprestanda. I nuläget är konkurrenssituationen skev, där värmepumpar har en stor fördel då fastigheter kan byggas med sämre energiprestanda med värmepumpar. Fjärrvärmens framtid i Västerås är ljus. Utmaningen är att bibehålla deras stora marknadsandelar genom att upprätthålla ett konkurrenskraftigt pris då värmemarknaden står inför förändringar med minskat värmebehov och tuffare konkurrens.

The society changes rapidly and is heavily dependent on energy. The Energy usage in buildings account for about 40% of total Sweden's energy usage, where energy is used by buildings for electricity, cooling and heating. Therefore, energy is an important issue in today's society from an energy use approach to stop the global warming. In this work, a survey was carried out by an office building in Forsmark Kraftgrupp AB to find out about energy use and create a basis for energy-saving measures. The IDA ICE 4.7.1 program was used to simulate the building's energy use by creating a base model of the building. After that, the base model has been compared with different energy efficiency measures to check where the biggest and least energy saving potentials occur. The result shows that the total energy use in the office building is 198 125 kWh / year. The simulations show that energy efficiency measures could reduce energy use in the building by 81 962 kWh / year, which corresponds to 41.4% of the total energy use. Time control of ventilation systems gives the largest energy savings of 51, 2 kWh / m2, year.

Short term regulation, or hydropeaking, provides useful grid services and can be economically beneficial. However, hydropeaking is also associated with environmental impacts concerning flows and water levels. In the south of Sweden, where the electricity demand is greater than the supply, balance regulation from small hydropower plants can contribute to local grid stability. The objective of this report is to evaluate the possibilities for hydropeaking within Mälarenergi’s hydropower plants, with regards to possible power increase and environmental consequences. The report aims to conclude whether there is potential to optimize the operation of the power plants for production of balancing power. A literature study was conducted, as well as a survey of Mälarenergi’s hydropower plants and regulation dams. To describe potential flow regimes, three scenarios for hydropeaking in Kolbäcksån were created in joint consulation with Mälarenergi. The results show that the total increase in available power will vary from around 5 – 11 MW. It is indicated that the largest environmental impact will occur in the scenario with the greatest difference between base flow and peak flow. It can be concluded that several forms of hydropeaking are possible to utilize in Kolbäcksån. The available balancing power is enough to be able to contribute secondary frequency control for Svenska kraftnät. Flow parameters indicate that environmental and ecological impacts will be relatively mild, although this needs to be investigated further. To complement the findings in this report, an evaluation of the economic conditions for the proposed hydropeaking scenarios is proposed as a future project.

Flexible carbon capture and storage (CCS) has the potential to play a significant part in the decarbonisation of electricity generation portfolios which have significant penetration from intermittent renewable sources. Post-combustion capture (PCC) with amine solvents is a mature technology and is currently the state-of-the-art for CO2 emissions reduction from power stations. However, knowledge of the dynamic capture process is currently limited due to a dearth of dynamic datasets which reflect real plant operation, lack of a robust in-situ solvent analysis method for plant control and uncertainty about how changing plant design affects the response to dynamic operations. In addition, the nature of interfacial gas-liquid dynamics inside the absorber column are not well known and rely on correlations for effective mass transfer area and liquid holdup which may have uncertainties of up to +/- 13%. This could result in absorption columns being improperly sized for CCS operations. Two pilot-scale test campaigns are implemented in order to gain an understanding of how the capture plant responds to dynamic operations, the first on natural gas combined cycle (NGCC)-equivalent flue gas, the second on pulverised coal (PC)-equivalent. Changes in flue gas flow rates and steam supply which are designed to be representative of PCC operation on real NGCC and PC plant are implemented, using 30%wt monoethanolamine (MEA) as absorbent in both cases. Dynamic datasets are obtained for 5 scenarios with NGCC and 8 with PC flue gas. The test campaigns are carried out using two separate pilot-scale facilities and highlight the effect of plant design on hydrodynamics and hence, the response of the capture plant to dynamic operations. Finally, a novel solvent sensor is used to demonstrate, for the first time, control of the capture facility using in-situ measurements of solvent composition, combined with knowledge of test facility hydrodynamics and response times. Results from the pilot-scale test campaign are then used along with a mathematical NGCC capture plant scale up to investigate the potential effects of dynamic operations on total yearly CO2 emissions and the associated environmental penalties, depending on CO2 price. Manufacturers of column internals for CCS often rely on computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software tools for design, but existing commercial codes are unable to handle complex two-phase flows such as those encountered in the absorber column of a CO2 capture plant. An open-source direct numerical simulation (DNS) tool which will be capable of rigorously modelling two-phase flow with turbulence and mass transfer has been developed and could eventually replace the empirical methods currently used in packing design. The DNS code requires validation by experiment. For the purpose of validation a dual-purpose wetted-wall column is constructed, which in addition to mass transfer measurements can be used to determine liquid film thickness using an optical method. Measurements of average film thickness, wave amplitude, frequency, velocity and growth rate are provided for three liquid flow rates of fresh 30%wt MEA solution. Wave measurements are made with quiescent, laminar and turbulent gas flow, with and without mass transfer. These measurements can be used to validate the DNS code at its existing level of complexity, and in the future when turbulence and mass transfer are added.

A nursing home for old people is going to be built in Edsbyn, a community in Hälsingland, Sweden. The building needs calculation of energy use to receive a building permit. Seven different indicators in Miljöbyggnad were also examined. Miljöbyggnad is a Swedish environmental certification a building can acquire. In the project some changes in selected parameters of the buildings constructions and installations are examined to see how it affects the need of power to heat and the indoor climate. To obtain answers some simulations in IDA-ICE simulation program have been done together with a literature study. The results show that the building fulfills the requirements of specific energy use and mean value of the U-values that are set in BBR24. The building also fulfills the requirements of the number of primary energy and mean value of the U-values that is set in BBR25. Of the seven indicators in Miljöbyggnad that were examined two received the grade GOLD, three received SILVER and two received BRONZE. When building parameters are varied the results show that the largest difference in heating power is when changing the thickness of insulation and the largest difference in PPD, Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied, is when changing the indoor temperature.

This thesis considers the integration between Savonius wind turbines and photovoltaics to form a hybrid power system. Different integration techniques were studied to find the most suited technique and the necessary components. The hybrid system was then to be compared with a solar panel system of equal sizing to investigate whether it could compete in terms of production and profitability. A model of the hybrid systems was built in MATLAB Simulink to simulate the production of the systems. Simulations used SMHI measurement data over wind speeds, solar radiation and temperature, with data resolution of one hour for 2017. The Swedish electricity trading market was also studied to determine which guidelines and prices that apply when selling electricity to the grid. The investment costs for the systems were estimated to allow economic conclusions to be drawn. The result was that a hybrid system had a higher power delivery to the load but the total production was higher for the solar system. The hybrid system couldn’t compete with the profitability of the solar system in the studied case. Possible reasons for the result was that the wind resources at the tested location wasn’t enough and that the price for wind turbines was high. Conclusions was that the price of the turbines needs to decrease in order to make the hybrid system more competitive. For hybrid systems that contain wind turbines, it is important that the chosen site has good wind resources to take advantage of the potential of the turbines.