Impact of Reference Electricity Market Selection for Real-Time Electricity Tariffs on Emissions associated with Operations

As the energy transition progresses, small- and medium-scale industrial prosumers in Germany are increasingly faced with the challenge of balancing economic and ecological concerns in their energy procurement strategies. This paper examines the correlation between reference market selection for real-time electricity tariffs and the emissions associated with the electricity procurement (associated emissions). Specifically, it investigates whether intraday (ID) auction market has advantages over the day-ahead (DA) auction market with respect to the associated emissions of an inland port terminals operation, when selected as reference market for real-time electricity tariffs. Utilizing time-series analysis, the correlations between the carbon intensity of the grid electricity mix and the prices of each of the two considered markets are explored by means of the Spearman correlation coefficient. The energy system model of a fully electrified inland port terminal equipped with flexibility-providing energy technologies is used to simulate a financially optimized operation using in two separate scenarios the prices of the DA and the ID. The emissions associated with the operation of the port terminal is compared between the scenarios. The approach is then extended with a multi objective optimization to include both electricity price and carbon intensity into the decision-making process of the operation planning. All calculations are performed for two exemplary years. The results show no advantage in associated emissions for the ID market over the DA market, even when carbon intensity is factored into the optimization. On the contrary, the DA scenario consistently showed lower or equal associated emissions. While only one energy system is considered in this study, there is no reason to assume that alternative energy systems would exhibit deviating behavior.