The increase of distributed energy resources in the smart grid calls for new ways to profitably exploit these resources, which can participate in day-ahead ancillary energy markets by providing flexibility. Higher profits are available for resource owners that are able to anticipate price peaks and hours of low prices or zero prices, as well as to control the resource in such a way that exploits the price fluctuations. Thus, this study presents a solution in which artificial neural networks are exploited to predict the day-ahead ancillary energy market prices. The study employs the frequency containment reserve for the normal operations market as a case study and presents the methodology utilized for the prediction of the case study ancillary market prices. The relevant data sources for predicting the market prices are identified, then the frequency containment reserve market prices are analyzed and compared with the spot market prices. In addition, the methodology describes the choices behind the definition of the model validation method and the performance evaluation coefficient utilized in the study. Moreover, the empirical processes for designing an artificial neural network model are presented. The performance of the artificial neural network model is evaluated in detail by means of several experiments, showing robustness and adaptiveness to the fast-changing price behaviors. Finally, the developed artificial neural network model is shown to have better performance than two state of the art models, support vector regression and ARIMA, respectively.

The uncertainty caused by the variability in renewable energy production requires the engagement of consumer-side energy production and consumption to provide sufficient flexibility and reliability for the power grid. This study presents an algorithm for allocating tasks to distributed energy resources allowing consumers to provide flexibility for frequency containment reserves. The task allocation algorithm aims at supporting the plug and play of energy resources, and it avoids the need for hard real-time messages during the coordination of the resources. The algorithm combines a novel control strategy with an information and communication technology architecture. The main decision logic of the algorithm is defined together with the distributed control logic. A prototype implementation of the overall system for frequency control is used to evaluate the performance of the algorithm. The simulation results show that the algorithm achieves the specified objectives, and has advantages compared to the state of the art solution.

The increased penetration of distributed and volatile renewable generation requires the demand-side to be actively involved in energy balancing operations. This paper proposes a solution in which big data and machine learning methods are employed to enhance the capabilities of a Virtual Power Plant to participate and intelligently bid into a demand response energy market. The energy market being investigated consists of the frequency containment reserve market. First, we define the core decision-making required to overcome the uncertainties in the frequency containment reserve market participation for a Virtual Power Plant. Then, we focus on forecasting the frequency containment reserve prices for the day-ahead. We analyze the price data, and identify and collect the relevant features for the prediction of the prices. In addition, we select several regression analysis methods to be utilized for the prediction. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the implemented methods by executing several experiments, and compare the the performance with the performance of a state of the art autoregression method.

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