Evaluation of a payments proposal for blackstart services in the Colombian electricity system: A system dynamics approach

•Blackstart is a necessary but unregulated service in Colombia.•An Incentive scheme is required to encourage investment in, and provision of a blackstart service.•We propose the creation of a dynamic blackstart market through periodic auctions.•Modelling results indicate the via blackstart mechanismbility of the proposed scheme. All electrical power systems require some contingency arrangements to enable a restart in the unlikely event that all or a key part of the system shuts down. The process of restoring the power system is commonly referred to as blackstart. Not all power generators have, or are required to have blackstart capability. We propose a market-based scheme for blackstart services in the Colombian electricity sector where it has been an unregulated ancillary service. In this study, a system dynamics model is developed to better understand and analyze the behaviour of such a market in the long term. The developed simulation model uses a 20-year planning horizon and the analysis covers most elements of the proposed market for provision of blackstart services, including price behaviour, investment, installed capacity, and potential shortfalls. The simulation results show that the proposal for a dynamic market for blackstart services is stable and viable over the time period investigated.