arXiv · 2604.08309
Bayesian Inference for Estimating Generation Costs in Electricity Markets
Abstract
Estimating generation costs from observed electricity market data is essential for market simulation, strategic bidding, and system planning. To that end, we model the relationship between generation costs and production schedules with a latent variable model. Estimating generation costs from observed schedules is then formulated as Bayesian inference. A prior distribution encodes an initial belief on parameters, and the inference consists of updating the belief with the posterior distribution given observations. We use balanced neural posterior estimation (BNPE) to learn this posterior. Validation on the IEEE RTS-96 test system shows that marginal costs are recovered with narrow credible intervals, while start-up costs remain largely unidentifiable from schedules alone. The method is benchmarked against an inverse-optimization algorithm that exhibits larger parameter errors without uncertainty quantification.
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Matthias Pirlet, Adrien Bolland, Alexandre Huynen, Quentin Louveaux, Gilles Louppe, Damien Ernst. 2026-04-09. Bayesian Inference for Estimating Generation Costs in Electricity Markets. https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.08309
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.