Portfolio

Portfolio analysis is a post-process accounting for entities like utilities for detailed power cost analysis. This is how you can evaluate costs, avoided costs, value, and risk.

This information can provide detailed power cost analysis for any entity defined, or for portfolios of contract groups (or positions taken in the market).

Run Portfolio Analysis: This option turns on the portfolio analysis capability.

Use Market Sales and Purchases: This option reconciles energy deficiencies or excesses at market prices. With this checkbox selected, market sales and purchases are used to balance energy surpluses and deficiencies for each portfolio. This option can also be defined for each individual portfolio in the study using the Net Market Transactions column of the Portfolio Information table.

The final three Include... checkboxes determine what resource costs will be included in the production cost and resource cost totals reported for each portfolio.

Include Variable O&MInclude Variable O&M Check this box to control the treatment of variable operation and maintenance (O&M) expenses. When selected, the variable O&M expense will be included in the computation of Cost for the resource(s) in the Portfolio Output Table. Variable O&M quantities are specified in the Variable O&M column of the Resources Table. Resources included in a portfolio are specified in the Portfolio Resource Table.

Include Fixed O&MInclude Fixed O&M Check this box to control the treatment of fixed operation and maintenance (O&M) expense. When selected, the fixed O&M expense will be included in the computation of Cost for the resource(s) in the Portfolio Output Table. Fixed O&M quantities are specified in the Fixed O&M column of the Resources Table. Resources to be included in a portfolio are specified in the Portfolio Resources Table.

Include Start Up CostsInclude Start Up Costs Check this box to include resource start up costs in the computation of Cost for the resource(s) in the Portfolio Output table. Start up costs are specified in the Start Up Costs column of the Resources input table. The Cost computation in the Portfolio Output Table also includes the cost of any start up fuel used, which is specified in the Start Fuel ID and Start Fuel Amount columns in the Resources input table. Resources to be included in a portfolio are specified in the Portfolio Resources Table.

See the Aurora Portfolio Flow Diagram for visual representation of this logic.

There are three portfolio Input Tables used to specify an unlimited number of portfolios, demand profiles, resource combinations and/or contract combinations. Resources and/or contracts are reconciled against a user-defined demand profile or against market price.

Portfolio Information: This table is used to define and evaluate an unlimited number of portfolios, which can include user-defined demand profiles. The entities may be utilities, customers, a user-defined list of contracts, resources, or contracts and resources.

Portfolio Resource: The entity's resources (owned, operated or potential resources) are specified in this table. These resources are part of the production cost computation.

Portfolio Contracts: There are more than 30 different contracts (purchases and sales) that may be entered in this table.

NOTE: Monetary values for portfolio contracts are input in nominal terms.

In addition to the standard portfolio study described above, there is an additional form for Portfolio Optimization studies.

Simulation Options

Portfolio