Shift of the power system generation from the fossil to the variable renewables prompted the system operators to search for new sources of flexibility, i.e., new reserve providers. With the introduction of electric vehicles, smart charging emerged as one of the promising solutions. However, electric vehicle aggregators face the uncertainty both on the reserve activation and the electric vehicle availability. These uncertainties can have a detrimental effect on both the aggregators’ profitability and users’ comfort. State-of-the art literature mostly neglects the reserve activation or it’s uncertainty. On top of that, they rarely model European markets which are different that those commonly addressed in the literature. This paper introduces a new method for modeling the reserve activation uncertainty, also termed as balancing energy procurement in the European context, based on the real historic data from the European power system. Three electric vehicle scheduling models were designed and tested: the deterministic, the stochastic and the robust. The results demonstrate that the current deterministic approaches inaccurately represent the activation uncertainty and that the proposed models that consider uncertainty, both the stochastic and the robust, substantially improve the results. Additionally, the sensitivity analysis for the robust model was performed and it demonstrates how a decision-maker can choose its level of conservativeness, portraying its risk-awareness.

Battery energy storage is becoming an important asset in modern power systems. Considering the market prices and battery storage characteristics, reserve provision is a tempting play fields for such assets. This paper aims at filling the gap by developing a mathematically rigorous model and applying it to the existing and future electricity market design in Europe. The paper presents a bilevel model for optimal battery storage participation in day-ahead energy market as a price taker, and reserve capacity and activation market as a price maker. It uses an accurate battery charging model to reliably represent the behavior of real-life lithium-ion battery storage. The proposed bilevel model is converted into a mixed-integer linear program by using the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker optimality conditions. The case study uses real-life data on reserve capacity and activation costs and quantities in German markets. The reserves activation quantities and activation prices are modeled by a set of credible scenarios in the lower-level problem. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to comprehend to what extent do battery storage bidding prices affect its overall profit.

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) and renewable energy sources are complementary technologies from the power system viewpoint, where renewable energy sources behave as flexibility sinks and create business opportunities for BESS as flexibility sources. Various stakeholders can use BESS to balance, stabilize and flatten demand/generation patterns. These applications depend on the stakeholder role, flexibility service needed from the battery, market opportunities and obstacles, as well as regulatory aspects encouraging or hindering integration of storage technologies. While developed countries are quickly removing barriers and increasing the integration share of BESS, this is seldom the case in developing countries. The paper identifies multiple case opportunities for different power system stakeholders in Croatia, models potential BESS applications using real-world case studies, analyzes feasibility of these investments, and discusses financial returns and barriers to overcome.

One of the most important objectives of the European Union is the creation of an Internal Electricity Market (IEM) in Europe. Various national electricity market designs represent one of the major obstacles to the creation of IEM and it is necessary to coordinate national market designs among Member States in order to achieve that. Therefore, this paper gives a comprehensive overview of the electricity market design according to laws related to the electricity sector that are in force in Croatia. Additionally, the paper identifies key obstacles that hamper the development of a well-functioning electricity market in Croatia towards its further integration into the IEM. Since Croatian Power Exchange (CROPEX) is not coupled with any other power exchange, special attention was given to necessary prerequisites for market coupling with the Slovenian Power Exchange (BSP SouthPool) and with the Hungarian Power Exchange (HUPX).