Poland - Economic and Financial Benefits of Distributed Generation Small-Scale, Gas-Fired CHP

The Polish energy markets have recently been restructured, opening the door to new players with access to new products and instruments. In response to this changed environment, the Government of Poland and the Polish Power Grid Company were interested in analyzing the competitiveness of small-scale combined heat and power (CHP) plants as well as potential east-west power transfers from Russia to Germany.

The Center for Energy, Environmental, and Economic Systems Analysis (CEEESA) at Argonne National Laboratory developed the Generation and Transmission Maximization (GTMax) model to study the complex marketing and operational issues in Poland’s deregulated energy markets. GTMax simulates the dispatch of generation units and the economic trade of energy among utility companies. The objective of GTMax is to maximize the net revenues of power systems by finding solutions that increase income while minimizing expenses. The Polish power grid was modeled as a set of five interconnected power regions, or power pools.

CEEESA transferred GTMax to the Polish Energy Market Agency (EMA), trained a group of experts from the agency to use the model, and provided ongoing technical support to the team. By using GTMax’s powerful graphical user interface, EMA quickly built a network representation of the Polish power system topology and analyzed various scenarios.