William (Junho) Song, 2013, Mathematics
The main project of my internship in the summer of 2011 was to design an electricity price simulator under the guidance of Professor Warren Powell. Electricity prices are regularly subject to quite a bit of flux due to unforseen conditions, and it is critical for utilities to be able to predict price changes. By accurately predicting a spike in spot prices, utilities can protect themselves against heavy losses by purchasing forward contracts and options beforehand. However, in order to develop a working model of the electricity spot prices, we must first have a competent simulator that can run hypothetical scenarios without incurring actual losses. The simulator that I developed introduced randomness to a chosen history of actual prices and simulated scenarios that could have happened, in the hopes that it would shed light on the future prices. I hope to have laid down a solid foundation for further study in this area.