Effects on Electricity Marginal Costs due to Variations of the Load Curve in Colombia

This paper analyzes the variations of marginal costs for the Colombian electricity market due to changes in the profile of the load curve using an optimization model for the dispatch. Our major findings are: first, there is an important reduction of marginal costs due to flattening of the load curve, and a important growing due to the shoring of the load curve when we consider a deterministic simulation using the historical information for the year 2013 and 2014. Second, stochastic optimization of the operation for a horizon of five years shows that the flattening of the load curve reduces significantly the number of cases and the quantity of rationed electricity respect to the base scenario.