Design characteristics of a smart grid dominated local market

The purpose of this paper is to describe the roles, services and relationships that a local market would encompass, and the type of market interactions that should take place in it. The local market place constitutes an arena for a new business role - the smart energy service provider, which represents the entity with the most central functionalities with respect to local market operation. The local market is described as consisting of three key elements of brokerage/sale: energy, flexibility and other services. Three alternative market settings are considered: islanding mode, interaction with the wholesale market and a third one where other market agents (aggregators/retailers) carry the interactions with the wholesale market. Finally, the paper specifies the relationship between the smart energy service provider and the various local market actors and provides a clarifying user case.