Increasing concerns about global warming have led to the exploration of options to abate CO2 emissions. Recent studies have identified the energy sector as the largest emitting source worldwide. Therefore, the transition towards low-carbon power systems has incorporated larger volumes of renewable generation. This situation is prompting the necessity of improving current strategies to operate power systems, as more variability is introduced in the decision making process. This thesis contributes in two aspects to manage the generation mix of future power systems. Firstly, it addresses the question of how many scenarios are enough to represent the variability of wind power. Results obtained indicate that a balance should be pursued between quality of solution and computational burden, as more scenarios does not significantly change the operational cost. Secondly, an original method to narrow down the number of scenarios is proposed. The so-called severe scenarios outperform typical reductions in the sense that fewer adjustments are required to the generation scheduling programme. Despite the growing renewable generation capacity, the operation of the electric system is likely to continue its reliance on thermal plants. Hence, the need to curb CO2 emissions in the existing thermal plants has led to the development of technologies such as carbon capture. The technical maturity of this technology is still in its early stages, since its application to thermal plants is under development. This thesis bridges the gap of current knowledge on carbon capture in three aspects. Firstly, it presents an innovative methodology to quantify the value of flexibility provided by carbon capture in the context of the British system. Secondly, the role of retrofitted generators as reserve providers is addressed. Finally, the synergy between carbon capture and wind power is assessed. The evaluation considers CO2 pricing, two strategies to manage CO2 capture rate, variability and different levels of wind integration.