Day-ahead flexibility market clearing mechanism for interactive collaboration of transmission and distribution system operators

Abstract

This paper explores the procurement of flexibility services in the power system by the collaboration between transmission system operators (TSO) and distribution system operators (DSO) in the day-ahead market (DAM). With the coordination and interaction among the operators, the existing flexibility sources in transmission and distribution levels are exploited efficiently to procure flexibility services. For motivation of the distributed generation (DGs) sources and microgrids (MGs) to provide flexibility services, DSO aggregates the flexible sources of its grid and offers them to the upstream market. Doing so addresses the TSO uncertainties and improves the flexibility of the entire grid. The simulation results suggest the increased market efficiency and reduced operating costs for transmission and distribution levels using flexible sources. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that utilization of existing flexible sources in the distribution grid enhances the flexibility of the entire system and, consequently, increases the absorption from renewable energy sources (RES). Also, the flexibility procurement for DSO is associated with an increase in revenue and motivation of MGs. An examination of the impact of MG's ownership on the market clearing mechanism is also investigated in this regard. Finally, the reserve affects the system's flexibility. This effect is helpful for flexible systems while reducing the flexibility metrics for inflexible systems.