Accurate electricity price forecasting has become a substantial requirement since the liberalization of the electricity markets. Due to the challenging nature of electricity prices, which includes high volatility, sharp price spikes and seasonality, various types of electricity price forecasting models still compete and cannot outperform each other consistently. Neural Networks have been successfully used in machine learning problems and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) have been proposed to address time-dependent learning problems. In particular, Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) are tailor-made for time series price estimation. In this paper, we propose to use multi-layer Gated Recurrent Units as a new technique for electricity price forecasting. We have trained a variety of algorithms with three-year rolling window and compared the results with the RNNs. In our experiments, three-layered GRUs outperformed all other neural network structures and state-of-the-art statistical techniques in a statistically significant manner in the Turkish day-ahead market.

The intraday electricity markets are continuous trade platforms for each hour of the day and have specific characteristics. These markets have shown an increasing number of transactions due to the requirement of close to delivery electricity trade. Recently, intraday electricity price market research has seen a rapid increase in a number of works for price prediction. However, most of these works focus on the features and descriptive statistics of the intraday electricity markets and overlook the comparison of different available models. In this paper, we compare a variety of methods including neural networks to predict intraday electricity market prices in Turkish intraday market. The recurrent neural networks methods outperform the classical methods. Furthermore, gated recurrent unit network architecture achieves the best results with a mean absolute error of 0.978 and a root mean square error of 1.302. Moreover, our results indicate that day-ahead market price of the corresponding hour is a key feature for intraday price forecasting and estimating spread values with day-ahead prices proves to be a more efficient method for prediction.

Accurate electricity price forecasting has become a substantial requirement since the liberalization of the electricity markets. Due to the challenging nature of the electricity prices, which includes high volatility, sharp price spikes and seasonality, various types of electricity price forecasting models still compete and can not outperform each other consistently. Neural Networks have been successfully used in machine learning problems and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) have been proposed to address time-dependent learning problems. In particular, Long Short Term Memory and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) are tailor-made for time series price estimation. In this paper, we propose to use Gated Recurrent Units as a new technique for electricity price forecasting. We have trained a variety of algorithms with rolling 3-year window and compared the results with the RNNs. In our experiments, 3-layered GRUs outperformed all other neural network structures and state of the art statistical techniques in a statistically significant manner in the Turkish day-ahead market.

Electricity price forecasting has a paramount effect on generation companies (GenCos) due to the scheduling of the electricity generation scheme according to electricity price forecasts. Inaccurate electricity price forecasts could cause important loss of profits to the suppliers. In this paper, the financial effect of inaccurate electricity price forecasts on a hydro-based GenCo is examined. Electricity price forecasts of five individual and four hybrid forecast models and the ex-post actual prices are used to schedule the hydro-based GenCo using Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). The financial effect measures of profit loss, Economic Loss Index (ELI) and Price Forecast Disadvantage Index (PFDI), as well as Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of the models are used for comparison of the data from 24 weeks of the year. According to the results, a hybrid model, 50% Artificial Neural Network (ANN)–50% Long Short Term Memory (LSTM), has the best performance in terms of financial effect. Furthermore, the forecast performance evaluation methods, such as Mean Absolute Error (MAE), are not necessarily coherent with inaccurate electricity price forecasts’ financial effect measures.

Under the uncertain and the flexibility required conditions, the conventional capital budgeting techniques are insufficient to decide the most feasible investment due to their static nature. Classical real option valuation techniques have been used for various investment options such as deferment and abandonment. Although these techniques help to evaluate the projects in uncertain environments, they still follow the static, certain Boolean logic assumptions. Therefore, further improvement in the real option valuation has been introduced with the usage of fuzzy logic. Fuzzy logic is applied by binomial and Black–Scholes real option valuation methods up to date, but not with the trinomial lattice. Moreover, Types-1 and 2 fuzzy numbers are used; however, the intuitionistic fuzzy numbers are not analyzed in detail in the real option valuation. In this article, we propose an intuitionistic fuzzy trinomial lattice real option valuation model for a solar energy investment project. While valuing the deferment option, expert opinions, two different volatility methods, and a tailor-made electricity price-forecasting model are used. According to our results, the deferment option is valuable and delaying the start of the project provides a much higher expanded net present value than an immediate start. The contribution of this article is that the uncertainty in the real option valuation is modeled from a broader perspective with intuitionistic fuzzy numbers by taking the hesitancy of the decision-maker and the market into account. Consequently, the proposed method would increase the accuracy of the real option valuation in uncertain environments such as renewable energy sector.