‘Cooperative game’ inspired approach for multi-area power system security management taking advantage of grid flexibilities

This paper advocates for a progressive rethinking of the day-ahead/intra-day power system security management practice in the low-carbon energy transition era. As a starting point, the need for coordination between multi-area transmission system operators in order to efficiently exploit the value of grid flexibility towards operating the low-carbon, multi-area power system securely and economically is emphasized. On this basis, the core proposal of this paper is the adoption of a new approach to day-ahead/intra-day multi-area power system security management, inspired by the principles of cooperative game theory. The proposed approach relies on counterfactual analysis to evaluate the (positive and/or negative) impact of each distinctive control area to the common security of the multi-area system, thus providing clear economic incentives to achieve the required coordination. This proposal is not a marginal approach and notably facilitates the integration of more detailed physical modelling (including the non-convexities of the power system) in the inter-TSO settlement of the multi-area interconnected system security management cost. The proposed framework allows some level of subsidiarity and the definition of hedging products to cover ex-post costs. Further from the blueprint of the proposed approach, the paper presents a demonstrative implementation in the context of static N-1 security management and discusses prominent research and development pathways in order to progressively put such vision into practice. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The mathematics of energy systems’.