Linear Sensitivities to Define Reactive Power Areas for Voltage Control and Reactive Power Service in Electricity Markets

The reactive power and voltage control service is essential for power system operation. Its pricing should reflect the locational and the differentiated benefit of voltage regulation and reactive power reserves for contingency supporting, so commonly this service is not supplied throughout market mechanisms as the active power, but by considering it as a regulated service with recognized costs. In order to reflect these properties, the power system could be separated into some nonover-lapping reactive power control areas such as the voltage profile of each one of them is mainly controlled by the reactive power sources in that area. This paper proposes a methodology to determine reactive power areas based on linear sensitivities to help to identify consumers (loads) that should pay for the service to all the generators integrating each one of the area. A numerical example is reported to illustrate the how the methodology is applied.