MT Schedule Pricing Method

Units:	-
Default Value:	0
Validation Rule:	In (0,1)
Description:	Type of generator pricing used in MT Schedule

MT Schedule Pricing Method controls how generator offer prices are calculated in MT Schedule. Because MT Schedule is a non-chronological model its generator unit commitment is always linearized. This means that the no-load cost of generation will be spread across the generation of the unit, rather than be "sunk" when a commitment decision is made. This has the effect of making generator offer prices, and hence the resulting nodal and regional prices, appear like average cost, rather than marginal cost.

To control this behaviour you can set this switch to one of these values:

Average Cost (value = 0)

Generator no-load cost is counted as part of the generator offer prices. This gives more accurate dispatch but will distort pricing.

Marginal Cost (value = 1)

Generator no-load cost is removed from generator offer prices (and hence ignored in the optimization). Pricing will be based on marginal cost, but the dispatch results may be distorted.

If you are using MT Schedule alone for pricing forecasting, then the marginal cost option is best, but if you are using MT Schedule as part of a multi-phase simulation with ST Schedule then it is best to keep the default average cost setting.