Abstract
The Transmission System Operators (TSOs) from Portugal and Spain do not procure Frequency Containment Reserve (FCR) through market mechanisms. A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) aggregating sources such as wind and solar power and hydrogen electrolysers (HEs) would benefit from participation in this ancillary service market. The methodology proposed in this paper allows to quantify the costs of the participation of the Iberian TSOs in the FCR Cooperation as well as the revenues of a VPP that aggregates wind and solar power and HEs. Results are produced using real data from past market sessions. The Portuguese TSO would have paid roughly 10 M€ to participate in this market in 2022. Using data for the same country and year, a VPP (aggregating the HEs expected to be connected by 2025) would have revenues over 2 M€. © 2023 IEEE.

Abstract
Aggregators are acknowledged as key agents to enable the active participation of household and commercial distributed energy resources (DER) in electricity markets. In recent years, many researchers and practitioners have been working on the development of diverse network-secure and network-insecure bidding strategies to support the participation of DER aggregators in electricity markets. An example of this is the extensive work developed by the authors of this paper in various R&D projects with industry. This paper builds on the experience gained in previous works and its main contribution is a thorough comparison between these strategies, resulting in an extensive discussion of their pros and cons. The discussion compares the economic and network security performance of the strategies, as well as their communication, computational, and data privacy requirements. To discuss and quantify these aspects, we formulate, implement, and test various bidding strategies on a real-world MV-LV distribution network with 2 aggregators and 522 customers for multiple DER scenarios. The discussion of the results provides realistic and valuable information on the pros and cons of each strategy, helping energy system stakeholders to understand which strategy may better fit their needs.

Abstract
Electric power systems are currently experiencing a profound change, as increasing amounts of Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) displace conventional forms of generation. This development has gone hand-in-hand with an increasing share of distributed power generation being connected directly to the Distribution Network (DN), and the widespread of other types of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), such as Energy Storage Sytems (ESSs), Electric Vehicles (EVs), and active (flexible) consumers. As these trends are expected to continue, this will require a profound revision of the way Transmission System Operators (TSOs) and Distribution System Operators (DSOs) interact with each other to fully benefit from the growing flexibility that is available at the DN level. In this work we propose a new tool for the coordinated operational planning of transmission and distribution systems, considering the existence of shared resources that can be simultaneously used by TSO and DSOs for the optimal operation of their networks. The tool uses advanced distributed optimization techniques, namely the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) in order to maintain data privacy of the several agents involved in the optimization problem, and keep the tractability of the problem. The proposed tool is applied to modified IEEE test systems, and the results obtained highlight the benefits of the proposed coordination mechanism to solve problems occurring simultaneously at the transmission and DN-levels.

Abstract
This paper presents a general comparison between network-secure and network-free optimization frameworks to manage flexible multi-energy resources. Both frameworks were implemented in a test case that includes electricity, gas, and heat distribution networks. Several potential scenarios for the decarbonization of the multi-energy system were simulated. The economic, technical, and environmental impacts were compiled. The network-secure framework is highly recommended to avoid service disruptions due to network violations, but its implementation comes with a price - overall operational costs increase, sometimes substantially.

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