Equilibria in an Oligopolistic Electricity Pool With Stepwise Offer Curves

We study the equilibria reached by strategic producers in a pool-based network-constrained electricity market. The behavior of each producer is modeled by a mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC) whose objective is maximizing profit and whose complementarity constraints describe market clearing. The joint solution of all these MPECs constitutes an equilibrium problem with equilibrium constraints (EPEC). The equilibria associated with the EPEC are analyzed by solving the strong stationarity conditions of all MPECs, which can be linearized without approximation by mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) techniques. The resulting mixed-integer linear conditions can be reformulated as an optimization problem that allows establishing diverse objectives to differentiate among alternative equilibria.