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Ramping Procurement and Bid-Cost Recovery in Real-Time Market

Cong Chen, Valentina Norambuena, Lang Tong

arXiv 17 Jun 2026 · eess.SY

arXiv:2606.19599 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

We study ramping procurement co-optimized with economic dispatch under net-demand uncertainty. We examine two flexible ramp product designs implemented by grid operators: single-interval and multi-interval co-optimization. Both rely on rolling-window stochastic optimization with binding and advisory interval decisions. We develop analytical frameworks to evaluate generator profits, consumer payments, bid cost recovery (BCR), and operational efficiency. In particular, net-demand uncertainty may lead to generator under-compensation, requiring discriminatory BCR. While operational efficiency is invariant to energy and ramp prices, producer profits and consumer payments depend critically on pricing. We examine locational marginal pricing (LMP) and two uniform pricing: maximum dispatch cost pricing (MDCP) and maximum temporal locational marginal pricing (MTLMP). With out-of-market BCR, LMP yields discriminatory energy prices, whereas MDCP eliminates BCR and MTLMP does so in most cases. This property enables us to establish truthful bidding incentives for price-taking generators under MDCP. Our analysis highlights trade-offs between single- and multi-interval co-optimization and pricing designs: single-interval energy-ramp co-optimization is advantageous under high forecast uncertainty and moderate ramping requirements, whereas multi-interval co-optimization is superior when net-demand forecasts are relatively accurate and ramp needs are challenging. Empirical results on CAISO and ERCOT data show that MDCP and MTLMP increase producer profits with negligible BCR, albeit at the expense of higher consumer payments relative to LMP.

Citation extraction

30
references
63
in-text mentions
30
distinct cited
4
self-citations
9,551
main-text words

appendix boundary found by appendix_titled_section at “Appendix” · 62% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.

Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1(2025) Dynamic Ramp Capability Product Requirement (Uncertainty Component)1.00053100%
2(2023) California ISO to Chile: Flexible Ramping Product0.9285480%
3Cavicchi, Joseph and Harvey, Scott (2018) Ramp capability dispatch and uncertain intermittent resource output0.87462100%
4(2025) Storage Design and Modeling0.87452100%
5Chen, Cong and Guo, Ye and Tong, Lang (2020) Pricing multi-interval dispatch under uncertainty part II: Generalization and performance self0.8434475%
6Guo, Ye and Chen, Cong and Tong, Lang (2021) Pricing Multi-Interval Dispatch Under Uncertainty Part I: Dispatch-Following Incentives self0.81142100%
7(2011) Flexible Ramping Products Straw Proposal0.73732100%
8Chen, Cong and Tong, Lang (2025) Incentivizing Ramping with Uniform Pricing self0.64422100%
9Cho, Jehum and Papavasiliou, Anthony (2023) Pricing under uncertainty in multi-interval real-time markets0.51121100%
10(2024) Flexible Capacity Requirement Methodology for 2025 through 20270.51121100%

Showing the top 10 of 30 scored citations.