Bi-level economic dispatch jointly driven by bilateral carbon measurement and carbon-green certificate trading under low-carbon coordination

Abstract

Although existing studies have incentivized source-side emission reductions through carbon trading and other mechanisms, unilateral carbon metering frameworks have predominantly focused on the power generation sector, overlooking the critical role of the user side as an emission driver. Moreover, the carbon-green certificate trading (CET-GCT) mechanism has largely been studied in isolation, lacking systematic synergy. This paper proposes a bi-level economic dispatch model jointly driven by bilateral carbon measurement and carbon-green certificate trading. Firstly, a bilateral carbon measurement framework is developed, incorporating dynamic characteristics of carbon emissions at the unit level and carbon emission flow (CEF) theory to accurately measure emissions from both the supply and demand sides. Secondly, a stepped CET-GCT joint mechanism has been introduced to facilitate the integration of renewable energy. Thirdly, a bi-level economic dispatch model is constructed, where the upper level formulates unit dispatch plans to minimize system cost, tracks emissions, and calculates node carbon intensity using the CEF model. The lower level then coordinates demand response guided by load node carbon intensity to achieve synergistic optimization of economic efficiency and carbon reduction. Finally, simulation results on a power node architecture demonstrate that the proposed model significantly lowers carbon emissions and improves the system’s low-carbon economic efficiency. Specifically, the proposed model reduces the total system cost by 15.9 %, reduces the cost of renewable energy abandonment by 14.8 %, and reduces total carbon emissions by 5.5 %.