PI: Monish Mukherjee
Co-PI(s): A. Bose
Sponsor: Battelle – Pacific Northwest National Laboratory – DGRP
Award Amount: $110,174
Project Period: 01/2020 – 12/31/2021
Summary: Advances in electricity generation and storage technologies coupled with declines in cost, the proliferation of smart metering and favourable regulation are inducing a transformation of a large share of electricity consumers in prosumers – producing or storing electricity at home through solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries and other means [1]. In an attempt to empower prosumers, the traditional centralized (top-down) approach of electricity markets are reformed. Californian utilities are aggressively reformulating the current market structures and tariffs to incentivize distributed energy resources (DERs) [2]. The state of New York is implementing its Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) strategy to promote decentralized renewable generation and management and encourage prosumers to actively participate in the electricity system [3]. The changing electricity industry landscape provides an unprecedented opportunity for positive, synergistic interactions via smart prosumer grids. Microgrids which were initially popularized to increase resiliency of power systems, are finding their place in this landscape as economic transactive agents capable of providing a platform not only to incentivize prosumers for energy resources (local generation, flexible load) but also to simplify market regulation and interface with the wholesale system operator [4]. Such prosumer centric microgrids can operate in connection with the main grid providing grid services for bulk power and distribution system operators. The microgrids can also operate autonomously in ‘islanded mode’ optimizing the prosuming services at the microgrid level and engaging in bilateral trades with other microgrids, prosumers or consumers. The proposal aims at developing a co-simulation