Competitive DER Aggregation for Participation in Wholesale Markets

Abstract: The problem of the large-scale aggregation of the behind-the-meter demand and generation resources by a distributed-energy-resource aggregator (DERA) is considered. As a profit-seeking wholesale market participant, a DERA maximizes its profit while providing competitive services to its customers with higher consumer/prosumer surpluses than those offered by the distribution utilities or community choice aggregators. A constrained profit maximization program for aggregating behind-the-meter generation and consumption resources is formulated, from which payment functions for the behind-the-meter consumptions and generations are derived. Also obtained are DERA's bid and offer curves for its participation in the wholesale energy market and the optimal schedule of behind-the-meter resources. It is shown that the proposed DERA's aggregation model can achieve market efficiency equivalent to that when its customers participate individually directly in the wholesale market.