The role of smart communities integrated with renewable energy resources, smart homes and electric vehicles in providing ancillary services: A tri-stage optimization mechanism

Increasing the connection of renewable energy sources and electric vehicles (EVs) to modern cities with smart homes (SHs) makes the need for new mechanisms to coordinate them with the operation of transmission (TN) and distribution networks (DNs) inevitable since the uncertain behavior of the above-mentioned resources can create various technical and economic challenges for the operators. Hence, this article introduces a tri-stage mechanism for the joint management of the energy and ancillary services markets in coordinated TN and DN, taking into account wind and solar renewable resources, SHs and EVs. In the first stage of this mechanism, SHs do their daily planning with the possibility of participating in the regulation market and send it to the DN operator. In the second stage, DN operator determines its strategy for participation in the energy and ancillary services markets according to the programs received from SHs and sends it to the TN operator. Finally, in the third stage, the TN operator settles the markets according to the plans received from the DN operators. This model is designed in the mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) format and simulated using CPLEX solver in GAMS. The simulation outputs illustrate that SHs by controlling their internet-of-things (IoT)-based appliances and EVs have provided cheap services in the regulation market and subsequently reduced the costs of this market by 10.4%. Also, the results reveal that the participation of large-scale industrial units in the demand response program (DRP) not only reduces the costs of the energy and ancillary services markets but also improves the voltage profile during the peak period.