Anomalies 2018

Notes on strange broker behaviors observed in the 2018 final round. Data from those games can be found through the tournament csv file.

• An agent issues a set of simple tariffs, and then issues another set of identical tariffs every 24h through the entire game. The tariff market charges a substantial fee for each new tariff, and only two of these tariffs made back their initial cost -- total earnings were about half what it paid in publication fees. In some cases there can be a benefit to re-issuing tariffs, because a customer will only evaluate a limited number of "old" competing tariffs, in addition to its currently-subscribed tariff. As a result, once several other competing tariffs have been offered for a given customer type, older tariffs will not be considered other than by their remaining subscribers. So if a broker wishes to keep a tariff in front of customers, it may need to re-issue it after several other competing tariffs have shown up. However, if re-issuing a tariff does not yield new subscriptions, then it is likely uncompetitive and re-issuing it again is unlikely to be fruitful.
• An agent wishes to raise its rates, and does so by issuing a new tariff and revoking the old one. It does this without specifying that the new tariff is a replacement for the old one. The result is that (1) customers develop a distaste for that broker, because they don't like having tariffs revoked, and (2) the new, higher-cost tariff must compete with all the other brokers. You can specify that a new tariff "supersedes" an older one by calling addSupersedes(oldID) on the new TariffSpecification before sending it out. That will ensure that the new tariff is at least considered by customers of the old one, although they will still object a bit to being jerked around.
• Some tariffs include early-withdrawal penalties without specifying a minDuration. Customers only pay the penalty if they withdraw from a tariff before the end of the early-withdraw period.
• Storage and thermal-storage tariffs are offered without specifying regulation rates. In some cases, brokers are then issuing balancing orders, which are essentially renewable bids in the balancing market. That works for balancing, but it denies customers the ability to account for likely payments from regulation actions when evaluating competing tariffs. This is especially important for Battery customers, for whom regulation payments are their primary incentive to subscribe.