Energy Markets

The Evolution of Probabilistic Price Forecasting Techniques: A Review of the Day-Ahead, Intra-Day, and Balancing Markets ArXiv ID: 2511.05523 “View on arXiv” Authors: Ciaran O’Connor, Mohamed Bahloul, Steven Prestwich, Andrea Visentin Abstract Electricity price forecasting has become a critical tool for decision-making in energy markets, particularly as the increasing penetration of renewable energy introduces greater volatility and uncertainty. Historically, research in this field has been dominated by point forecasting methods, which provide single-value predictions but fail to quantify uncertainty. However, as power markets evolve due to renewable integration, smart grids, and regulatory changes, the need for probabilistic forecasting has become more pronounced, offering a more comprehensive approach to risk assessment and market participation. This paper presents a review of probabilistic forecasting methods, tracing their evolution from Bayesian and distribution based approaches, through quantile regression techniques, to recent developments in conformal prediction. Particular emphasis is placed on advancements in probabilistic forecasting, including validity-focused methods which address key limitations in uncertainty estimation. Additionally, this review extends beyond the Day-Ahead Market to include the Intra-Day and Balancing Markets, where forecasting challenges are intensified by higher temporal granularity and real-time operational constraints. We examine state of the art methodologies, key evaluation metrics, and ongoing challenges, such as forecast validity, model selection, and the absence of standardised benchmarks, providing researchers and practitioners with a comprehensive and timely resource for navigating the complexities of modern electricity markets. ...

Extrapolating the long-term seasonal component of electricity prices for forecasting in the day-ahead market ArXiv ID: 2503.02518 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract Recent studies provide evidence that decomposing the electricity price into the long-term seasonal component (LTSC) and the remaining part, predicting both separately, and then combining their forecasts can bring significant accuracy gains in day-ahead electricity price forecasting. However, not much attention has been paid to predicting the LTSC, and the last 24 hourly values of the estimated pattern are typically copied for the target day. To address this gap, we introduce a novel approach which extracts the trend-seasonal pattern from a price series extrapolated using price forecasts for the next 24 hours. We assess it using two 5-year long test periods from the German and Spanish power markets, covering the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2021/2022 energy crisis, and the war in Ukraine. Considering parsimonious autoregressive and LASSO-estimated models, we find that improvements in predictive accuracy range from 3% to 15% in terms of the root mean squared error and exceed 1% in terms of profits from a realistic trading strategy involving day-ahead bidding and battery storage. ...

Heath-Jarrow-Morton meet lifted Heston in energy markets for joint historical and implied calibration ArXiv ID: 2501.05975 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract In energy markets, joint historical and implied calibration is of paramount importance for practitioners yet notoriously challenging due to the need to align historical correlations of futures contracts with implied volatility smiles from the option market. We address this crucial problem with a parsimonious multiplicative multi-factor Heath-Jarrow-Morton (HJM) model for forward curves, combined with a stochastic volatility factor coming from the Lifted Heston model. We develop a sequential fast calibration procedure leveraging the Kemna-Vorst approximation of futures contracts: (i) historical correlations and the Variance Swap (VS) volatility term structure are captured through Level, Slope, and Curvature factors, (ii) the VS volatility term structure can then be corrected for a perfect match via a fixed-point algorithm, (iii) implied volatility smiles are calibrated using Fourier-based techniques. Our model displays remarkable joint historical and implied calibration fits - to both German power and TTF gas markets - and enables realistic interpolation within the implied volatility hypercube. ...

Efficient mid-term forecasting of hourly electricity load using generalized additive models ArXiv ID: 2405.17070 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract Accurate mid-term (weeks to one year) hourly electricity load forecasts are essential for strategic decision-making in power plant operation, ensuring supply security and grid stability, planning and building energy storage systems, and energy trading. While numerous models effectively predict short-term (hours to a few days) hourly load, mid-term forecasting solutions remain scarce. In mid-term load forecasting, capturing the multifaceted characteristics of load, including daily, weekly and annual seasonal patterns, as well as autoregressive effects, weather and holiday impacts, and socio-economic non-stationarities, presents significant modeling challenges. To address these challenges, we propose a novel forecasting method using Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) built from interpretable P-splines that is enhanced with autoregressive post-processing. This model incorporates smoothed temperatures, Error-Trend-Seasonal (ETS) modeled and persistently forecasted non-stationary socio-economic states, a nuanced representation of effects from vacation periods, fixed date and weekday holidays, and seasonal information as inputs. The proposed model is evaluated using load data from 24 European countries over more than 9 years (2015-2024). This analysis demonstrates that the model not only has significantly enhanced forecasting accuracy compared to state-of-the-art methods but also offers valuable insights into the influence of individual components on predicted load, given its full interpretability. Achieving performance akin to day-ahead Transmission System Operator (TSO) forecasts, with computation times of just a few seconds for several years of hourly data, underscores the potential of the model for practical application in the power system industry. ...

Swing contract pricing: with and without Neural Networks ArXiv ID: 2306.03822 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract We propose two parametric approaches to evaluate swing contracts with firm constraints. Our objective is to define approximations for the optimal control, which represents the amounts of energy purchased throughout the contract. The first approach involves approximating the optimal control by means of an explicit parametric function, where the parameters are determined using stochastic gradient descent based algorithms. The second approach builds on the first one, where we replace parameters in the first approach by the output of a neural network. Our numerical experiments demonstrate that by using Langevin based algorithms, both parameterizations provide, in a short computation time, better prices compared to state-of-the-art methods. ...