IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2022 - 53

provide district heating to surrounding commercial, institutional,
and residential consumers. Longo Brothers Fruit
Markets is a demand response aggregation of grocery stores
in the demonstration area.
Most of the DERs participating in the demonstration
are demand response resources with capabilities developed
before the project was launched. However, DERs expected
to be installed following the local capacity auction were eligible
to participate. These resources, referred to as future
DERs, did not need to exist at the time of the auction but
were required to be in place before the commitment period
commenced on 1 May. The demonstration did not, however,
receive significant participation from future DERs. This may
be attributed to the demonstration being time limited since
it concludes in 2022. Revenue opportunities sustained during
additional years are likely needed to stimulate greater
investment in new DER installations. The local capacity
auction design can be modified to address these considerations.
Auctions can be held further in advance of when the
DERs will be used, potentially giving participants years to
invest in and develop installations. The auction design could
also have longer commitment periods, potentially involving
multiyear commitments to provide participants greater longterm
revenue certainty.
Local Energy Auctions
The DERs that clear in the local capacity auction are
required to make their capacity available in the demonstration's
local energy auctions. Participants indicate the availability
of their DERs to be activated for energy service by
issuing bids in the local energy auctions. To provide participants
flexibility to express the cost of operating their DERs
at different output levels and times, bids can be broken down
into five price-and-quantity pairs for any hour, enabling
parties to specify prices for various output levels from their
installations. Participants must also indicate whether each
pair could be fully or partially activated, with the latter
enabling the DSO to activate only a portion of the quantity
of the price-and-quantity pair. While bids can be input at any
time, the platform enables participants to provide standing
bids that are used until they are updated.
Local energy auctions are held periodically during the
project's commitment period, on days when the local demand
is expected to peak and DERs need to be used for distribution
NWA purposes. As illustrated in Figure 4, this need is
referred to as the local requirement in the demonstration
and represents the amount of energy that DERs must provide.
DERs are required to deliver energy when local demand
cannot be met by the upstream system because of network
infrastructure limitations (i.e., the local area is import constrained).
As noted, the reliability constraint in the demonstration
is simulated. A loading threshold was chosen to
mimic station limits. This facilitated an exploration of energy
needs that could emerge in the future if an NWA project were
to be implemented in the demonstration area.
As depicted in Figure 5, the process for the local energy
auctions begins at 7 a.m. on business days throughout the
commitment period. Shortly before that time, the platform
checks the demand forecast for the demonstration
area to see if it exceeds the loading threshold and whether
a local requirement is expected. If there is a requirement, a
100
150
200
50
06
12
Time (h)
figure 4. The loading threshold and local requirement for
energy.
18
24
Local
Loading Threshold
Requirement
Platform Checks
Load Forecast
Before 7 a.m.
L
(Maximum: 4 h)
7 a.m.
Standby Notice
Issued
T-2 h
Activation Notice
Issued
figure 5. A process for local energy service in the demonstration.
march/april 2022
ieee power & energy magazine
53
Availability
Window Opens
12 p.m.
Platform Rechecks
Load Forecast
Before T-2 h
Activation Hours
9 p.m.
Availability
Window Closes
Megawatts
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2022

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