Simulating demand participation in market operations

Demand response and dynamic pricing programs are emerging in greater numbers as policy makers look for higher efficiencies and new mechanisms to integrate distributed resources into system operations. The behavior of demand-side resources (including distributed generation, storage, and load), their interaction with the power system, and their operating characteristics under different electric market scenarios raise many questions for system operators, market operators, and regulators. Computer simulation provides a powerful tool for investigating these issues. This paper discusses the use of GridLab-D as simulation environment to model the behavior of distributed resources in detail such that resources interact in new market environments while observing the physical constraints of system operation. GridLab-D provides an open source platform for integrating demand-side models with power system models and market operation models. The flexibility of this environment will be discussed as well as some of the findings emerging from having this simulation capability.