Aggregated Flexibility to support Congestion Management

Increased variable renewable energy sources requires more flexibility that could be provided by distributed energy sources located at small end-users. Aggregators could act as intermediary entities to exploit the flexibility potential of small end-users and create value for DSOs by offering congestion management services. An optimization model based on Linear Programming is developed and used to compare two alternatives for congestion management for a case-study in The Netherlands. The results show that the Aggregator could reduce the total system costs with -12,8% as compared with traditional grid reinforcements. Whether and how much value is actually captured by end-users and the Aggregator depends on market dynamics such as wholesale price developments, pricing rules, competition between Aggregators, and contract negotiations.