Coordinated generation and transmission expansion planning in deregulated electricity markets: comprehensive review and thesis proposal

Abstract

This paper presents a complete and comprehensive review of the state of the art on the coordination of Generation Expansion Planning (GEP) and Transmission Expansion Planning (TEP) in deregulated markets. In such an environment, generation companies freely decide about their investments, while the transmission planner decides about network enhancements. These investment decisions are mutually dependent. Indeed, a lack of coordination can lead to inefficient transmission investments and lower profits for generation companies. In particular, this paper provides an up to date assessment of the existing models explicitly considering the interactions between GEP and TEP (coordination models), and it discusses the needs and challenges for developing coordination price-signals to generation companies to complement the current coordinating frameworks.