Enhancement of transmission-distribution coordination for congestion management through an order prequalification scheme for distributed energy resources

The massive deployment of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) on distribution grids presents both challenges and opportunities for system operators. Distribution System Operators (DSOs) must actively manage their network to ensure security constraints and should collaborate effectively with the Transmission System Operators (TSOs) to enhance the overall power system reliability and efficiency. The topic of TSO-DSO coordination has drawn a lot of attention in recent years and several coordination models have been integrated into the balancing market framework. Nevertheless, depending on the coordination model, which defines roles and responsibilities among market participants, there exists a risk of violating grid operational constraints when DERs are allowed to participate in transmission grid-level markets. Here, we adopt a decentralized coordination model from existing literature, that enables active distribution grid management. This work builds upon this coordination model and proposes a novel DERs market order prequalification scheme that enables the participation of DERs in transmission-level balancing markets while ensuring zero distribution grid congestion. The proposed scheme generates a feasible region that comprises the original DERs market orders. To demonstrate its efficacy and compare its performance against existing methods, we apply the proposed scheme to a power system consisting of both transmission and distribution levels, utilizing the IEEE 9-bus test system and a 463-bus medium voltage distribution system, respectively.