Optimised TSO-DSO Coordination to Integrate Renewables in Flexibility Markets

The necessary energy transition to decarbonize power systems is leading to increasingly important challenges for the operation of power systems. On the one hand, the intermittent nature of renewable generation requires system operators to procure ancillary services in larger volumes than in the past. On the other, the growing penetration of medium- and small-scale, flexible demand and storage systems in distribution networks could potentially offer network services, if they are aggregated effectively and there is an appropriate coordination between transmission system operators (TSOs), distribution system operators (DSOs) and aggregators. Therefore, an important topic to be analysed is whether distributed energy resources (DER) can replace traditional generation in the provision of ancillary services (AS), how this replacement will affect the system operators’ roles and how to improve the coordination between TSOs and DSOs. This paper shows the results of the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) performed within the project SmartNet to assess the advantages or disadvantages of different TSO-DSO coordination schemes, as well as the follow-up activities to be carried out in the project CoordiNet.