Maximizing social welfare of prosumers in neighborhood battery-enabled distribution networks
Afshin Najafi-Ghalelou, Mohsen Khorasany, Reza Razzaghi
Abstract
This paper presents a two-stage framework to facilitate the integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) within emerging distribution-level markets. Market prices significantly influence the decision-making process for prosumers and electric vehicle (EV) owners participating in the market, necessitating a robust optimization approach to formulate resilient offering and bidding strategies under uncertain market conditions. The proposed model is tailored for a distribution network equipped with a neighborhood battery, enabling prosumers to charge or discharge the battery profitably. Robust half-hourly-based offer and bid curves are submitted by prosumers and EV owners, reflecting their market price predictions and accommodating different levels of uncertainty, treated as scenarios. The social welfare maximization problem is formulated using a scenario-based approach, considering the received offer/bid curves to clear the market. Results show that considering the discharge capability of EVs leads to an increase in the overall social welfare of distribution networks. Additionally, when both the capabilities of discharge and export power are considered, it can be observed that the presence of a neighborhood battery can lead to an improvement of more than 35.83% in overall social welfare.