Transactive Demand–Response Framework for High Renewable Penetrated Multi-Energy Prosumer Aggregators in the Context of a Smart Grid

Demand–response (DR) can provide the economic flexibility required to adapt a high proportion of renewable energy in the context of a smart grid. This paper proposes a transactive DR framework to enable the multi-time-scale proactive participation of demand-side flexible multi-energy resources. In this framework, the distribution system operator distributes the real-time DR request and the high renewable penetrated multi-energy prosumer aggregators provide the ancillary services based on their adjustable potential. To facilitate such multi-time-scale prosumer–operator interactions, a flexibility potential evaluation method is developed for the quantification and pricing of prosumer flexibility. The positive and negative flexibility potential of the demand-side prosumer aggregators are defined as deviations from the optimal pre-dispatch operation, which are further quantified using the aspects of flexible time and power. Based on the introduction of a flexibility pricing mechanism to identify the economically optimal ancillary service requirements, each prosumer aggregator performs an optimal real-time DR scheduling. Case studies over several DR schemes are performed to confirm the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method on the economy and flexibility of the system.