Troubleshooting

The Maon-Team develops, maintains, and operates the platform 24/7 independently of the user base. While the platform is designed for reliability, errors may occur during use.

Please do not hesitate to contact us via email or phone in case of any questions. Be prepared to confirm if the Maon-Team is permitted to access your scenario to diagnose the issue. The Maon-Team is committed to ensuring fast, smooth, and productive operation for all users.

Common issues

Grid cost-benefit analysis

Issue: Social welfare appears to increase in bidding zones that are not directly connected to expanded interconnector capacity.

Possible reason: This phenomenon might result from a tipping-point effect in price coupling. Enhanced interconnector capacity can facilitate increased transit flows to more distant bidding zones, reducing prices in those zones. If the distant bidding zones contribute significantly to overall social welfare, this can lead to a leveraged increase in welfare there, even though the bidding zone is not directly connected to the new capacity.

Bypass option: If the effect aligns with the explanation above: Consider limiting the exchange capacities of the larger social welfare zone during the relevant intervals to limit the social welfare impact.

Market analysis for frequency reserves

Issue: Significant price differences are observed between negative and positive frequency reserve prices.

Possible reason: Frequency reserve prices are influenced by the scarcity of generation-increase and consumption-increase capacity. For negative reserves, thermal plants, for instance, must operate above 0 MW to provide negative reserve capacity. For positive reserves, these plants must operate below their maximum capacity to offer negative reserve capacity. An imbalance in the scarcity of these reserve types can result in price differences. For example, a very high spot market demand might increase the need for generation, creating a scarcity for positive reserves. Conversely, a low operational level of thermal units might exacerbate scarcity for negative reserves.

Bypass option: Identify the root cause of the scarcity by examining the reserve provision schedules alongside the spot market conditions. If asymmetry in scarcity is evident, consider adjusting the market composition to balance the availability of positive and negative reserve potentials in relation to the reserve demand. This may involve revising demand or capacity assumptions to reflect more realistic input assumptions.