Demand side and distributed resource management — A transactive solution

The Smart Grid of the future requires coordinated management of large numbers of distributed and demand response resources, intermittent resources, while maintaining high degrees of grid reliability and improving operational economics. This will involve information exchange between many entities, systems, devices, and user for enrolling, scheduling, monitoring, control, and with demand response resources, intermittent renewable generation, storage devices, grid monitoring and control devices, and micro-grids, and between markets utility operations, customers and service provides. New methods are needed for real-time and end-to-end management of such complex system. The deregulation of wholesale electricity markets in mid 1990´s introduced mechanisms for scheduling and management of power transactions in a competitive market while considering transmission congestion, and the need for flexibility and ease of use. Capacity reservations, energy tagging, and locational pricing were among some of the methods introduced. Technological advancements over the past 15 years now make it possible to extend the lessons learned into new scale of capabilities suited for Smart Grid of the future. A transactive framework for scheduling, authorizing, controlling, and managing distributed resources provides in a Smart Grid and competitive market environment. This includes use of “micro-tag” concept, distributed and hierarchical intelligence, dynamic transaction routing and approval. Requirements and considerations associated technical architecture, cyber security, scalability and flexibility will be discussed. Representative examples for demand response and distribution congestion management will be provided.