Economic assessment of network-constrained transactive energy for managing flexible demand in distribution systems

Abstract

The increasing number of distributed energy resources such as electric vehicles and heat pumps connected to power systems raises operational challenges to the network operator, for example, introducing grid congestion and voltage deviations in the distribution network level if their operations are not properly coordinated. Coordination and control of a large number of distributed energy resources requires innovative approaches. In this paper, we follow up on a recently proposed network-constrained transactive energy (NCTE) method for scheduling of electric vehicles and heat pumps within a retailer's aggregation at distribution system level. We extend this method with: (1) a new modeling technique that allows the resulting congestion price to be directly interpreted as a locational marginal pricing in the system; (2) an explicit analysis of the benefits and costs of different actors when using the NCTE method in the system, given the high penetration of distributed energy resources. This paper firstly describes the NCTE-based distribution system that introduces a new interacting scheme for actors at the distribution system level. Then, technical modeling and economic interpretation of the NCTE-based distribution system are described. Finally, we show the benefits and costs of different actors within the NCTE-based distribution system.