Effects of Local Electricity Trading on Power Flows and Voltage Levels for Different Elasticities and Prices

Lin Herenčić,Ivan Rajšl,Perica Ilak

doi:10.3390/en12244708

Abstract

Local electricity trading is a concept that allows active electricity trading between consumers, producers and/or prosumers located in a local low voltage distribution grid. The concept should provide added value to the participants and accelerate the democratization, decarbonization and decentralization of the power sector. The effects of local electricity trading on voltage levels in distribution grids are just in the early stage of research, together with the possible means of control, market design, market-clearing approaches and integration of the local electricity trading within the electricity markets. The aim of this work is to contribute to the research by examining if near real-time local electricity trading can be implemented in a distribution grid without time-consuming security-constrained unit commitment calculations for the observed time horizon and without security-constrained economic dispatch calculations for each trading period. Moreover, this work investigates if the implementation of local electricity trading can contribute to the avoidance of unpredictable and unfavorable consumption/production patterns, which can appear in the distribution grid due to the random behavior of a large number of participants. It is analyzed if a contribution to the maintenance of the voltages and currents within limits can be achieved that way. The method for simulation of a local electricity market and analysis of power flows and voltage levels is presented. The auction-based local electricity trading is simulated and applied on the modified IEEE European Low Voltage Test Feeder where the effects of local electricity trading on power flows and voltage levels are studied for boundary elasticities and prices of demand and supply offering curves. It is shown that the local electricity trading has potential to incentivize active participation of prosumers, which can lead to better demand/supply balancing at the local level and to a decrease of voltage fluctuations.

Highlights

The declining costs of installation of distributed renewable energy sources (RESs) [1] and distributed storage systems (DSS) [2], development of information and communication technology (ICT) [3], and rise of the citizens’ desire to actively participate in decision making and decarbonization of the energy system [4] have enabled the development of innovative business models and energy management systems in the power sector
The energy balance is divided on the: (1) Peers self-consumption, which is the energy produced by the PV systems owned by the prosumers and consumed immediately at their locations, (2) Local energy trading in the observed distribution grid, which is the energy produced by the PV systems owned by the prosumers and not consumed by themselves but traded with the other peers in the local distribution grid, (3) Export to the upstream grid, which is the surplus energy exported out of the observed distribution grid, and (4) Import from upstream grid, which is the energy imported to the observed distribution grid in periods when local demand is higher than local supply
The paper proposes the method for simulation and analysis of the effects of different elasticities and prices in offering curves of the peers participating in the Local electricity trading (LET), on power flows and voltage levels in the distribution grid

Summary

Introduction

The declining costs of installation of distributed renewable energy sources (RESs) [1] and distributed storage systems (DSS) [2], development of information and communication technology (ICT) [3], and rise of the citizens’ desire to actively participate in decision making and decarbonization of the energy system [4] have enabled the development of innovative business models and energy management systems in the power sector. Local electricity trading (LET) at local energy markets (LEM). Is a concept that should allow electricity trading between different peers (decentralized generation, prosumers, consumers) [5] in local distribution grid [6] and that way provide value-added to the participants, accelerate the integration of RESs, improve the grid stability and potentially provide auxiliary services to the rest of the power system [7,8]. LEMs can be organized just as a business layer or can include network constraints in trading mechanisms [5]. Management and control of LET to remain under network constraints and to further contribute to the stability in distribution grid and grid-connected microgrids is an area where additional research is needed [5,9,11,13]

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