Impact of P2P Trading on the Dynamic Performance of Transmission Grids

Peer-to-peer (P2P) markets facilitate the integration of distributed energy resources, reduce distance between generation and consumption, and provide a convenient opportunity to reduce congestion on the transmission grid. In this context, P2P markets are usually investigated under the assumption that P2P trades are limited in size and number, thus ignoring the possible impact of the transmission network and its dynamic performance. However, the transmission grid is required to accommodate all the transactions that can not be satisfied in P2P markets, for example, due to local high prices or low generation. Accordingly, as P2P markets gain momentum, there is an increasing interest in assessing their potential impact on the transmission grid dynamic performance. This paper evaluates through extensive realistic simulations, the sensitivity of the frequency of the transmission grid to different parameters related to the P2P markets, such as variations in price, number of market participants, frequency of market clearance, and proposes a countermeasure to mitigate such an impact. The results show that P2P trading indeed affects system dynamics and an increasing number of P2P transactions may even lead to instability of the transmission system, but the proposed market price strategies are able to mitigate such undesirable effects.