The shift towards an energy Grid dominated by prosumers (consumers and producers of energy) will inevitably have repercussions on the distribution infrastructure. Today it is a hierarchical one designed to deliver energy from large scale facilities to end-users. Tomorrow it will be a capillary infrastructure at the Medium and Low Voltage levels that will support local energy trading among prosumers. In [74], we analyzed the Dutch Power Grid and made an initial analysis of the economic impact topological properties have on decentralized energy trading. In this paper, we go one step further and investigate how dierent networks topologies and growth models facilitate the emergence of a decentralized market. In particular, we show how the connectivity plays an important role in improving the properties of reliability and pathcost reduction. From the economic point of view, we estimate how the topological evolutions facilitate local electricity distribution, taking into account the main cost ingredient required for increasing network connectivity, i.e., the price of cabling.
An important component to be considered in electric power system expansion planning is the security of service that the system is able to provide. In restructured power systems, variables such as agents' profit or Locational Marginal Price (LMP) variances are considered in transmission expansion planning. Finally to have a secure network this plan would be refined for simulated contingencies. This paper proposes a new method for transmission expansion planning in which the grid owner (GO) is responsible for expansion while benefiting a fair benefit percentage. The objective function of transmission expansion tries to reduce weighted standard deviation of LMPs and the construction cost as well as the cost of security enhancement. For different scenarios of expansion; at first, the cost of security enhancement is calculated and then it is considered in the objective function of expansion. To investigate the validity of the method, we have applied it to the modified "Garver 6-bus test system for expansion". This paper proposes a method for choosing the best transmission system expansion plan considering a probabilistic reliability criterion ( sub R LOLE). The method minimizes the investment budget for constructing new transmission lines subject to probabilistic reliability criteria, which consider the uncertainties of transmission system elements. Two probabilistic reliability criteria are used as constraints. One is a transmission system reliability criterion ( sub R LOLE sub TS ) constraint, and the other is a bus nodal reliability criterion ( sub R LOLE sub Bus ) constraint. The proposed method models the transmission system expansion problem as an integer programming problem. It solves for the optimal strategy using a probabilistic branch and bound method that utilizes a network flow approach and the maximum flow-minimum cut set theorem. Test results on an existing 21-bus system are included in the paper. They demonstrate the suitability of the proposed method for solving the transmission system expansion planning problem subject to practical future uncertainties. In competitive energy market system, expansions are based on market-based resources. This concept is commonly accepted for the generation business, while it is more difficult to be put into practice for the transmission business as transmission is considered a natural monopoly. Nevertheless, as in the liberalized energy markets, the fast growth of wholesale electricity trading is strongly increasing the request for transmission services. A market-based model for transmission expansion has been recently proposed in order to provide incentives to the realisation of new transmission assets. The paper deals with some factors affecting both generation and transmission market-based expansions: price-forecasting, inter-area congestions, grid phenomena, transmission capacity increase, transmission technologies and system planning design. Methodologies and tools developed at CESl for the assessment of market-based projects are described as well as some applications and results relevant to the Italian system.