Stochastic analysis of electricity prices in India for high renewable energy penetration

Abstract

India is currently a major energy consumer due to its daily increase of population. As an effect of that, its power system infrastructure lacks of resources and capacity to provide the population with a reliable access to electricity. For instance, losses in transmission and distribution are of around 20% of the generated electricity. Its energy generation mix is mainly based on national coal, which possesses a low quality and low calorific value, being therefore inefficient and increasing the CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. As result of newly introduced energy policies, the country is looking to increase the generation from renewable sources, so as to help climate change mitigation. This thesis has focused on finding a proper energy mix with a higher renewable penetration that will, at the same time, maintain reasonable electricity prices. For this purpose, a stochastic approach has been taken, where data has been expressed as probability distributions, to account for the uncertainties in the input parameters.