Stateful Pricing and Allocation for Repeated Constrained DER Coordination in Distribution Networks

Abstract: Distribution networks with high penetrations of distributed energy resources (DERs) must repeatedly allocate limited network capability in two directions: under import scarcity, which flexible demand is served, and under export congestion, which generation is curtailed. Dynamic operating envelopes (DOEs) enforce hard feasibility bounds but lack intertemporal correction, while dynamic network prices (DNPs) provide an allocative signal but cannot guarantee constraint satisfaction. This paper develops a stateful cyber-physical coordination mechanism, termed an Automatic Market Maker (AMM), as an additive coordination layer for machine-to-machine DER access. The mechanism combines dual fairness states for import and export, bounded bilateral prices driven by a voltage-aware deficit signal, and feasibility-constrained matching within a two-tier MV/LV architecture. Experiments on the CSIRO MV+33LV feeder dataset compare five mechanisms and benchmark the fair-over-time DOE formulations of Moring et al. (FET, FOT, FUH). Relative to equal-allocation DOE, the AMM reduces unserved flexible demand by 76% (96.0 MWh to 23.2 MWh) with zero thermal violations and reduces export curtailment from 85.4 MWh to 64.5 MWh. Near-identical DOE and DOE-GREEDY performance confirms that heuristic choice alone does not improve repeated constrained outcomes. The AMM reaches an annual inter-feeder Jain index of 0.9998, outperforming all DOE variants from month 6 onwards. Direct benchmarking against FET/FOT/FUH shows that these mechanisms achieve higher worst-feeder equity through an explicit max-min MV objective, but operate offline over predetermined horizons and do not provide bilateral scarcity signals, real-time operation, or participant-level intertemporal correction. The two approaches address different objectives and may be combined in future work.