Innovative paradigms and architectures for future distribution electricity networks supporting the energy transition

Future electricity distribution grids will host an important and growing share of variable renewable energy sources and local storage resources. Moreover, they will face new load structures due for example to the growth of the electric vehicle market. These trends raise the need for new distribution grid architecture and operation paradigms to keep the grid stable and to ensure quality of supply.

We present the results of a thesis aimed to facilitate the development of innovative services for electricity customers to become prosumers playing a key role on the support of the energy transition. We propose an architecture for the exchange of energy and flexibility services with neighbors, service providers and network operators. In particular, we propose three complementary demand side management mechanisms, enabling prosumers to reduce their electricity bill by sharing renewable energy among their neighbors on an hour-ahead local market. A dynamic phase allocation mechanism tied to the market results is proposed to keep the load balanced among the three phases of the distribution grid. Finally, we cope with forecast errors by enabling prosumers to participate on a real-time reserve for the Distribution System Operator. The combination of the proposed local energy market, dynamic phase switching and game-based real-time control mechanisms provide solutions for major distribution grid challenges without requiring important infrastructure investments, allowing to effectively increase the capacity of distribution grids for hosting renewable energy and supporting the energy transition.