Peer-to-Peer and Real-Time Energy Exchanges with Data Centers in a Transactive Energy Framework

Renewable generators can be installed behind-the-meters of the power consumers to offset a portion of the consumers' power loads. Although these generators help in lowering electricity cost of power consumers, they pose serious challenges to the operation of power distribution systems. Namely, the power consumers with behind-the-meter renewable generators compensate for their local generation shortages by adjusting their power draw from the power distribution systems. Consequently, the fluctuations in the local renewable generations are transmitted to the consumers' net loads, i.e. the actual power consumptions of the consumers minus the local renewable generations. The rapid fluctuations of the net loads may cause reliability issues in the operation of the power distribution systems, specially at higher levels of renewable energy penetration. To secure the reliable operation of the distribution systems under penetration of renewable generators, there is a need for a mechanism that can counterbalance the rapid fluctuations of the net loads. The transactive energy paradigm is emerging to fulfill this urgent need. This paper studies energy exchanges with data centers in a transactive energy framework. Through numerical simulations, it is shown that the fluctuations of the net loads are 53% more counterbalanced when the data centers' flexibilities are exploited in the transactive energy framework instead of a demand response framework.