Two-tier demand response with flexible demand swap and transactive control for real-time congestion management in distribution networks

With increasing deployment of distributed energy resources, network congestion is becoming a major concern of distribution system operators for secure operation of distribution networks. Real-time congestion management is important as congestion may occur at real-time operation due to forecast errors and components failures. To alleviate real-time congestion within distribution networks, demand response based congestion management schemes have been proposed. However, customers’ requirements on energy rebound, i.e., periods and amounts of energy rebound, are not considered in the existing demand response based congestion management schemes. Moreover, customers’ willingness to provide flexibilities for congestion management is not taken into account either. To resolve these issues, this paper proposes a two-tier demand response scheme with flexible demand swap and transactive control for real-time congestion management in distribution networks. With flexible demand swap and swap market, real-time congestion can be efficiently solved. Customers are able to rebound energy in multiple periods and determine the amounts of energy rebound by themselves. The proposed transactive control based interactive mechanism between aggregators and customers considers customers’ willingness to provide flexibilities. The Roy Billinton Test System (RBTS) was used to conduct case studies to validate the proposed two-tier demand response scheme for real-time congestion in distribution networks. The case study results demonstrate that the proposed two-tier demand response scheme can resolve congestion efficiently while considering customers’ requirements on energy rebound and willingness to provide flexibilities for congestion management.