The Influence of Small-Scale Power Plant Supporting Schemes on the Public Trader and Consumers

Abstract

The mechanism of support schemes for achieving the required share of renewable energy sources (RES) was implemented into the energy sector. The issued amount of support requires state subsidies. The end-users of electricity are paying the mandatory procurement component taxes to cover these subsidies. The article examines the way of minimizing the influence of the existing RES supporting schemes on the consumers. The fixed purchased electricity price in the case of RES does not encourage producers to operate at hours of peak consumption or when the price is high. Modification of the RES support mechanisms at the legislative level, firstly, could minimize the influence of the mandatory procurement component on the end-users’ electricity price, and secondly, could provide a great opportunity for the public trader to forecast the operation of small power plants and their generation abilities. Numerical experiments with models of two types of power plants (biofuel and hydropower) prove the existence of a problem and the presence of a solution. This problem constitutes the main subject of the present paper.

Keywords

• energy supply
• biofuel
• hydropower
• supporting schemes
• optimization
• mandatory procurement