Flexibility Participation by Prosumers in Active Distribution Network Operation

This paper investigates prosumers' flexibility provision for the optimal operation of active distribution networks in a transactive energy (TE) market. From a prosumer point of view, flexibility can be provided to operators using renewable energy resources (RES) and demand response (DR) through home appliances with the ability to modify their consumption profiles. In the TE market model, the distribution system operator (DSO) is responsible for market-clearing mechanisms and controlling the net power exchange between the distribution network and the upstream grid. The contribution of this work is the enhancement of a strategy to reduce operational costs of an active distribution network by using prosumers' flexibility provision through an aggregator or a smart building coordinator. To this end, a TE market for both energy and flexibility trading at distribution networks is presented, demonstrating the possibility to fulfill DSO requirements through the flexibility contributions in the day-ahead (DA) and real-time (RT) markets.