Overview
An all-island wholesale model of the Single Electricity Market (SEM), covering the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It clears the day-ahead market as a single copper-plate price zone over a full year of hourly snapshots, using the complete SEM fleet, and is calibrated against Ember day-ahead prices.
The model produces hourly clearing prices and dispatch by unit and technology, exported as a Convexity database per year. Variants are published for the current year and for forward wholesale years.
Use Cases
- Price forecasting. Hourly day-ahead wholesale price curves for the all-island SEM, for the current year and forward years.
- Capture-price and revenue analysis. Technology-level capture prices for wind, solar, battery and thermal assets.
- Asset valuation and PPA pricing. Value a merchant position or offtake contract against modelled clearing prices.
- Storage arbitrage. Assess battery and pumped-hydro cycling value against the modelled intraday price spread.
- Generation-mix and dispatch studies. Hourly output by technology and by unit across the full fleet.
- Scenario and sensitivity analysis. Test fuel, carbon, demand and capacity assumptions and read the effect on prices and dispatch.
- Benchmarking. A calibrated, reproducible baseline to anchor more detailed or locational studies.
How it works
The market is solved as a single copper-plate price zone, with one clearing price for the island, over 8,760 hourly snapshots. The full SEM fleet is represented (around 360 generators and 24 storage units) alongside interconnected neighbours (GB, GB-NI and FR). Clearing follows the day-ahead market as a linear economic dispatch (PyPSA LP, solved with HiGHS), with TSO active network constraints disabled because they bind in balancing rather than at the day-ahead stage. See the Validation tab for accuracy, methodology and caveats.
Coverage
- Market: all-island SEM (Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland).
- Neighbours: GB, GB-NI and FR interconnection.
- Resolution: hourly, full calendar year (8,760 snapshots).
- Fleet: 361 generators, 24 storage units, 31 links.
- Years: current year and forward wholesale years, one variant per year.
Validation
Modelled day-ahead prices track Ember actuals with 0.81 hourly correlation and €24.9/MWh MAE, averaging a few euro per MWh below actuals. The generation mix is reproduced to within roughly 10 to 30% per technology. See the Validation tab for the full price and generation comparisons, the metrics behind them, and the known limitations.
Access and downloads
The model runs in Convexity. Each year is published as a Convexity database (.db) carrying the full fleet, hourly dispatch and clearing prices, available under the Files tab (licence-gated). Load it into Convexity to explore prices, dispatch and the fleet, or to run scenarios.
Limitations
Interconnector imports are not yet attributed, so thermal generation runs low and net imports are understated. The single copper-plate zone carries no intra-island network constraints, and the generation comparison against metered output is directional rather than like-for-like. The Validation tab documents these in full.
License
Proprietary. © Bayesian Energy. Access is licence-gated through Convexity.