Bidding Strategy for Concentrated Solar Power with Thermal Energy Storage to Participate in Spot Market

Concentrated solar power (CSP) with thermal energy storage (TES) not only has fast regulation capability, but also can realize the time-shifted utilization of energy. Therefore, incorporating CSP with TES into the power system is beneficial to peak regulation and smoothing out fluctuations in the output of other renewable energy sources. With the gradual expansion of the total installed capacity of CSP stations, we consider the participation of CSP stations in the spot market as price makers and propose the bidding strategy to maximize the profitability of CSP stations. A bi-level bidding model is derived with the upper-level model aiming at maximizing the profit of CSP stations and the lower-level model aiming at maximizing social welfare. An all-scenario-feasible stochastic algorithm (ASF) is introduced to cope with uncertainty of wind power output. The practicality and effectiveness of the proposed bidding strategy in improving the profitability of CSP stations, enhancing social welfare and promoting wind power consumption are further demonstrated based on the improved IEEE 30-bus case and a real system case in Northwest China.