To be successful in the fast changing environment of a liberalizing energy market, market participants must carefully analyze the evolving situation to fully understand the marketplace and to remain abreast of the latest changes. 

In a complex industry like the energy sector, such work often involves conceptual analysis as well as quantitative modeling and simulation. In addition to market structures, rules and procedures, particular attention must be paid to forecasting prices and costs in the medium- to long-term. In many power and gas markets, market power and strategic bidding also have become increasingly important as they may have considerable influence on the profitability of investments.

KEMA’s analytical services cover both technical and financial aspects, and ranges from general market studies to detailed analytical assessments. In addition to various standard industry tools and models for generation modeling, forecasting and financial calculations, our proprietary model “SYMBAD” allows simulating the impact of strategic behavior in energy markets. 

We offer expert market analysis and modeling services including:

• Country and subject reports
• Comparative studies
• Market modeling & simulation
• Analyzing the impact of strategic behavior on prices 

We utilize leading-edge modeling tools including:

ProSym – an industry production simulation model 
ProSym optimizes the commitment and dispatch of generating units in order to minimize the system costs for generation based on hourly loads, characteristic of the units, fuels prices and market rules. Strong feature of ProSym is the CHP module for optimization of integrated heat and power systems (CHP). Main output of the model is the hourly market price and the cost-benefit statement of all units. ProSym can operate both cost based and bid-based. The optimization of bidding strategies is done with Symbad. 

Symbad – a KEMA proprietary strategic bidding model
Symbad incorporates the game theoretical background of the Nash equilibrium and uses the supply function equilibrium to determine optimum bidding strategies. The combination of several state of the art research results enables the treatment of non-symmetric portfolios in an oligopolistic market. Symbad can be applied autonomously or in combination with ProSym. The modeling approach used in Symbad provides a robust and powerful instrument for evaluation of power market behavior. We use this instrument for market concentration analysis, quantitative assessments of strategic behavior, price forecasting and deviation from perfectly competitive pricing (mark-ups). 

KEMA Financial Model
Our Financial Model simulates the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements of the power plant or portfolio of plants in case of predetermined revenue as input data (top-down mode) or generates cost reflective prices in case that the input data covers only the cost (bottom-up mode).