Methods of pricing and allocating capacity

A method of allocating transmission capacity at an equal settled unit capacity price to resource suppliers who seek to transmit a resource via a common conduit, comprising the steps of:

• specifying an available capacity for bidding;
• receiving bids from a plurality of resource suppliers, each bid specifying a desired capacity and a personal unit capacity price that the resource supplier is willing to pay for the desired capacity;
• selecting the bids with the highest personal unit capacity prices until the aggregate desired capacity of the selected bids at least equals the available capacity or until all bids have been selected if the aggregate desired capacity does not at least equal the available capacity;
• assigning the equal settled unit capacity price to be a function of the personal unit capacity prices bid in the selected bids;
• and
• allocating the available capacity at the equal settled unit capacity price to the resource suppliers who bid selected bids according the desired capacities bid in the selected bids.

A method of allocating transmission capacity for different available term durations at an equal settled net unit capacity price for each term duration to resource suppliers who seek to transmit a resource via a common conduit, comprising the steps of:

• specifying an available capacity for bidding;
• specifying available term durations for bidding;
• specifying minimum unit capacity prices for each term duration;
• receiving bids from a plurality of resource suppliers, each bid specifying a desired capacity, a desired term duration, and a net unit capacity price, wherein the net unit capacity price is the amount in addition to the minimum unit capacity price for a term duration that the resource supplier is willing to pay for the desired capacity for the desired term duration;
• selecting the bids with the highest net unit capacity prices until the aggregate desired capacity of the selected bids at least equals the available capacity or until all bids have been selected if the aggregate desired capacity does not at least equal the available capacity;
• assigning the settled unit capacity price for each term duration to be a function of the net unit capacity prices bid in the selected bids;
• and
• allocating transmission capacity at the equal settled unit capacity price for each term duration to the resource suppliers who bid selected bids according the desired capacities bid in the selected bids for each term duration.

A method of assigning rights of use to bidders at an equal settled unit price comprising the steps of:

• specifying an offered allotment of the right of use being offered for bidding;
• receiving bids from a plurality of bidders, each bid specifying a desired allotment and a personal unit price that the bidder is willing to pay for the desired allotment;
• selecting the bids with the highest personal unit prices until the aggregate desired allotment of the selected bids at least equals the offered allotment, or until all bids have been selected if the aggregate desired allotment does not at least equal the offered allotment;
• assigning the equal settled unit price to be a function of the personal unit prices bid in the selected bids;
• and
• allocating the offered allotment at the equal settled unit price to the bidders who bid selected bids according to the desired allotments bid in the selected bids.