Local Flexibility Market Design for Aggregators Providing Multiple Flexibility Services at Distribution Network Level

TLDR

High penetration of distributed energy resources creates new flexibility services such as prosumer or community self‑balancing, congestion management, and time‑of‑use optimization. This paper proposes a local flexibility market framework that lets multiple participants compete to buy or sell flexibility, detailing stakeholder interactions and a case study. The aggregator operates as a voluntary local market operator, supervising transactions among the distribution system operator, balance‑responsible party, and end‑users, with flexibility supplied by loads, generators, storage units, and electric vehicles, and defining the inputs and outputs of the market‑operation algorithms. The framework can postpone grid upgrades, lower energy costs, and enhance distribution grids’ hosting capacity.

Abstract

This paper presents a general description of local flexibility markets as a market-based management mechanism for aggregators. The high penetration of distributed energy resources introduces new flexibility services like prosumer or community self-balancing, congestion management and time-of-use optimization. This work is focused on the flexibility framework to enable multiple participants to compete for selling or buying flexibility. In this framework, the aggregator acts as a local market operator and supervises flexibility transactions of the local energy community. Local market participation is voluntary. Potential flexibility stakeholders are the distribution system operator, the balance responsible party and end-users themselves. Flexibility is sold by means of loads, generators, storage units and electric vehicles. Finally, this paper presents needed interactions between all local market stakeholders, the corresponding inputs and outputs of local market operation algorithms from participants and a case study to highlight the application of the local flexibility market in three scenarios. The local market framework could postpone grid upgrades, reduce energy costs and increase distribution grids’ hosting capacity.