Accelerated penetration of distributed energy resources (DER) for power generation and demand response (DR), the notion of just-in-time flexible consumption, are enabling the transformation from the current power grid structure to a modernized, cyber-enabled grid. In order to carry out an efficient design of Transactive Systems, a tightly integrated design of wholesale and retail markets and pricing policies is needed that incentivizes end-users' participation, accommodates physical constraints, and enables global objectives through local and distributed decision-making.
This talk will outline how this integrated design of wholesale and retail markets can be carried out. The two streams of research investigations from our lab will be featured: one is a dynamic wholesale market mechanism with the ability to make decisions at multiple time-scales, and the other is a hierarchical architecture capable of achieving volt-var control in the presence of large penetration of DERs and DRs. We will discuss how the results from these can be combined to result in an overall hierarchical Transactive architecture for smart distribution grids.