Distribution system participation to the Italian ancillary service market

The participation in the ancillary services market of distributed generators, programmable or not, private owned storages, and active end-users, located at the distribution level, can be an opportunity to reduce the operation cost of the electric power system. In this paper the barriers that might limit the effective involvement of new players in the ancillary services market are investigated and the market potentialities quantified for a real portion of the Italian power system.