Ronnie Belmans
Ronnie Belmans received his MSc degree in electrical engineering in 1979 and a PhD degree in 1984, both from KU Leuven, Belgium. In 1989 he added a Special Doctorate from the KU Leuven and in 1993 a ‘Habilitierung’, from the RWTH, Aachen, Germany. Currently, Ronnie Belmans is full professor at KU Leuven, teaching techno-economical aspects of power systems, electrical energy and regulatory affairs, among others. His research interests include smart grids, security of energy supply and the techno-economic aspects of the liberalization of the electricity market.
Within Belgium, Prof. Dr. Ir. Ronnie Belmans is vice president of the KU Leuven Energy Institute as well as cofounder and CEO of EnergyVille, a research collaboration in Genk specializing in energy in smart cities and buildings, in cooperation with VITO and imec.
On a global scale he is executive director of the Global Smart Grids Federation (GSGF).
Ronnie Belmans is also honorary chairman of the board of directors of ELIA, the Belgian transmission system operator.
Publications
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Brijs, Tom; De Jonghe, Cedric; Hobbs, Benjamin F; Belmans, Ronnie;
2017.
Interactions between the design of short-term electricity markets in the CWE region and power system flexibility.
Applied Energy ; 2017; Vol. 195; pp. 36 - 51
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LIRIAS873027
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© 2017 Elsevier Ltd Short-term electricity markets are generally defined as markets that take place from the day-ahead stage until physical generation and consumption. These markets include day-ahead, intra-day, and real-time balancing markets. In Europe, the first two are managed by power exchanges, while the third consists of reserve procurement and imbalance settlement and is operated by the local transmission system operator. Short-term markets are important tools to deal with net demand variability in the system, in which the need for flexibility is expressed and its provision is valorized. Due to the ongoing integration of variable renewables in the generation mix, the system's variability is increasing as a result of the limited controllability and predictability of those resources. As such, these markets become increasingly important. The contribution of this article is a comprehensive up-to-date discussion of the key design parameters and functioning of all three short-term markets, and their impact on the demand for and supply of flexibility. An understanding of the design and its implications is useful to policy-makers who are considering changes to facilitate the integration, availability, or valorization of flexibility, while also contributing to the decision-making of flexibility investors and operators. The geographical scope is the Central Western European region, including the Belgian, French, German, and Dutch market zones.
Publisher: Applied Science Publishers
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journal-articleBrijs, Tom; Geth, Frederik; Siddiqui, Sauleh; Hobbs, Benjamin F; Belmans, Ronnie; 2016. Price-based unit commitment electricity storage arbitrage with piecewise linear price-effects. Journal of Energy Storage ; 2016; Vol. 7; pp. 52 - 62 keyboard_arrow_downLIRIAS575036
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© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. Electricity storage plants can be used for many applications, with one of the most studied applications being arbitrage in the day-ahead market. Although the arbitrage value is related to the presence of price spreads, it also depends on the effect of (dis)charge actions on prices, as arbitrage generally reduces price spreads by increasing off-peak prices when charging and decreasing peak prices when discharging. As such, there are two important assumptions in price-based unit commitment arbitrage models: first, whether the storage operator is assumed to have perfect knowledge of future prices, and second, whether they recognize that their (dis)charge actions may affect those prices, i.e., the price-taking or price-making assumption. This article proposes a comprehensive formulation of the arbitrage problem including detailed operating constraints, and focuses on relaxing the price-taking assumption by considering real-world price-effect data, published in the form of hourly piecewise linear relationships between quantity and price based on submitted bids, which are referred to as "market resilience functions". These can be used to (1) evaluate the price-taking and price-making assumptions based on simplified price-effects, and to (2) provide an upper limit to the arbitrage value under the assumption that prices and price-effects are known at the decision stage. In addition, a stepwise approximation to the piecewise linear functions is developed to reduce computation time, i.e., from mixed-integer nonconvex quadratic programming to mixed-integer linear programming, while providing lower- and upper bound approximations to the arbitrage value. The developed models are applied to the Belgian day-ahead market for 2014, and show that the price-effect has a strong impact on the operation and arbitrage value of large-scale storage.
Publisher: Elsevier
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Brijs, Tom; De Vos, Kristof; De Jonghe, Cedric; Belmans, Ronnie;
2015.
Statistical analysis of negative prices in European balancing markets.
Renewable Energy: An International Journal ; 2015; Vol. 80; pp. 53 - 60
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LIRIAS873032
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The presence of renewable power generation technologies increases the need for system flexibility due to their variable nature. The increasing share of variable renewables in European power systems create a downward adequacy problem, which deals with the ability of power systems to cope with periods of excess generation. The occurrence of negative prices on Central Western European electricity markets confirms the relevance of this issue, which is referred to as “incompressibility of power systems” and is assessed as a barrier for further renewable power integration. The objective of this article is to identify the main drivers of negative price periods in European balancing markets, by means of both an empirical and regression analysis. Results confirm a positive relation with the scheduled generation of renewable and inflexible base load, as well as a negative relation with the scheduled system load. Furthermore, the occurrence of negative prices is related to the positive and negative forecast error of renewable generation and demand, respectively. It is concluded that negative balancing market prices provide a market signal for investments in flexibility sources such as flexible generation, demand response, electricity storage, and interconnector capacity.
Publisher: Elsevier
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Buijs, Patrik; Cole, Stijn; Belmans, Ronnie;
2009.
TEN-E revisited: Opportunities for HVDC technology.
European Energy Market Conference; 2009; pp. 127 - 132
Publisher: IEEE
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LIRIAS1107740
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The high voltage transmission grid is dominated by AC technology. This is justified by its technical characteristics and its cost efficiency. Although in future AC technology will still provide the core of the transmission grid, the changing context makes it ever more difficult to apply standard AC technology. Alternative technologies, such as VSC HVDC (Voltage Source Converter High Voltage Direct Current) become economically feasible. HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) is nothing new and has been applied in specific circumstances for decades. VSC HVDC is relatively new and has characteristics that can contribute to current investment problems. Therefore, VSC HVDC is no longer limited to a few niche applications and consequently should not be overlooked when an investment decision has to be taken. The aim of the paper is to illustrate that VSC HVDC is not necessarily a niche technology, but that it should be included as an option in new investment decisions.
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conferenceBuijs, Patrik; Meeus, Leonardo; Belmans, Ronnie; 2007. A SWOT analysis of the Belgian generation adequacy. Proceedings of 4th International conference on The European Electricity Market EEM'07 ; 2007; pp. 17 - 23LIRIAS1729645
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conferenceBuijs, Patrik; Meeus, Leonardo; Belmans, Ronnie; 2007. EU policy on merchant transmission investments: desperate for new interconnectors?. Proceedings of INFRADAY 2007 ; 2007; pp. 19 - ...LIRIAS1729669
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Buijs, Patrik; Bekaert, David; Van Hertem, Dirk; Belmans, Ronnie;
2009.
Needed investments in the power system to bring wind energy to shore in Belgium.
PowerTech 2009; 2009; pp. 2381 - 2386
Publisher: IEEE
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LIRIAS282087
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Renewable energy sources, and especially wind, take an increasing fraction of the European electric energy generation and they form an important part of the plans of the European commission towards a more sustainable future. Also for Belgium, wind power offers the most important renewable energy potential. Especially offshore wind power projects are booming and more than 2 GW is announced to be installed in the Belgian coastal waters. Of course, this energy needs to be transported to the mainland. At this moment however, the power system near to the coast is not ready to absorb such large amounts of electric power. New investments in transmission lines will be needed but these have been difficult in the densely populated country and further public opposition out of social, environmental and political concern is expected. For this paper, the Belgian situation is examined considering different investment options. A novel optimal investment model based on Kirschen (2004) is used to determine the techno-economic optimal investment policy. Strong emphasis is placed on retaining the current right-of-way.
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Buijs, Patrik; Meeus, Leonardo; Belmans, Ronnie;
2011.
Modelling bi-level games in transmission investments.
Publisher: International Association for Energy Economics
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LIRIAS1730969
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Transmission investments are considered key for delivering on energy policy goals. Of particular importance is the interconnection of zonal grids, like the different national European transmission grids or grids in several states in the U.S. Although the interconnection can be favourable from a policy point view, it is uncertain whether all zonal actors are willing to join such initiative and deliver on the required investments. This creates an area of tension between these two levels. In this paper this area of tension is assessed from a planning point of view. Two approaches are modelled and illustrated using a two-zone and three-zone example. A first cooperative model corresponds to a situation in which all zonal planners fully cooperate with the aim of maximizing overall social welfare. In contrast, a second non-cooperative model presents a situation where all zonal planners act according to their own interest and invest in order to maximize their zonal welfare. Both models have a bilevel structure, but are structurally different. Whereas the cooperative model can be seen as an MPEC which can be further simplified towards a QP, the non-cooperative model is an EPEC. Results indicate different investment levels and welfare effects for both approaches and they also underline the importance of compensation mechanisms.
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journal-articleBuijs, Patrik; Belmans, Ronnie; 2012. Transmission investments in a multilateral context. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems ; 2012; Vol. 27; iss. 1; pp. 475 - 483 keyboard_arrow_downLIRIAS1107749
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More and more transmission planning has to cope with a multilateral context due to increased electricity exchanges between zones. Whereas investments are decided upon and approved at the zonal level, policy goals can be formulated at a higher supranational level. The zonal level, however, can have its own objectives or way to reach the policy goals. This is possibly conflicting with the supranational or other zones’ viewpoints. In this paper, different transmission investment planners are compared. Conflicting outcomes are observed. As a possible compromise a Pareto-planner is proposed. He maximizes overall welfare while guaranteeing that all zones can at least keep their initial level of welfare. These constraints ensure that the multilateral context is explicitly taken into account. All planners are modeled as bilevel optimization problems and solved using mixed-integer quadratic programming and genetic algorithm. The models are applied on a 3-node and 14-node example.
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
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journal-articleBuijs, Patrik; Bekaert, David; Belmans, Ronnie; 2010. Seams Issues in European Transmission Investments. Electricity Journal ; 2010; Vol. 23; iss. 10; pp. 18 - 26 keyboard_arrow_downLIRIAS1562409
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European policy goals are challenging for transmission networks, requiring investments in cross-border capacity. Despite those goals, an increased awareness of the need for investments and the voluntary cooperation among countries sharing the challenges, a regulatory gap between national and European interests persists. Further development of a European cross-border planning and financing framework is required. U.S. experiences may serve as food for thought.
Publisher: Robert O. Marritz
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