Distribution system controls assessment in a nonbinding transactive energy market

In a nonbinding transactive energy market with a distribution system operator (DSO) and a set of distributed flexible energy resources, this paper studies the DSO controls. In this framework, DSO sends discharge permission signals to a subset of enrolled transactive agents, who then have the option, but not the obligation, to discharge power in real time at a time-varying payoff specified in advance in the contract. The DSO controls include decisions on when to dispatch discharge permissions and which subset of transactive agents should be selected at a time to receive the permission to operate. Three schemes for transaction trigger policy and agent selection policy for this nonbinding transactive market are developed. In these schemes the real-time electricity prices and the difference between the real-time and day-ahead loads are employed. Using data from NYISO the intensity of discharge permissions for each transaction trigger policy is estimated. For a nonlinear payoff structure and assuming that the distributed agents all follow their optimal control policies, the value of the nonbinding transactive energy market for the flexible energy resources as well as for DSO is computed under each DSO control. It is shown that the transaction trigger policy, determined by positive unforecasted loads and real-time power prices greater than the contractual time-varying payoff parameter, outperforms other policies in terms of the achievable cost saving for DSO.