Online distributed optimization for spatio-temporally constrained real-time peer-to-peer energy trading

TL;DR

This paper introduces an innovative online distributed optimization approach for real-time peer-to-peer energy trading that accounts for uncertainties and physical network constraints, ensuring stable and efficient market operation.

Contribution

It proposes a novel spatio-temporally constrained stochastic optimization framework and a modified Lyapunov method for online decision-making in P2P energy markets, with privacy-preserving distributed algorithms.

Findings

Enhanced flexibility and performance over existing methods

Guarantees fast, stable, and safe market operation

Achieves near-optimal solutions with theoretical guarantees

Abstract

The proliferation of distributed renewable energy triggers the peer-to-peer (P2P) energy market formations. To make profits, prosumers equipped with photovoltaic (PV) panels and even the energy storage system (ESS) can actively participate in the real-time P2P energy market and trade energy. However, in real situations, system states such as energy demands and renewable energy power generation are highly uncertain, making it difficult for prosumers to make optimal real-time decisions. Moreover, severe problems with the physical network can arise from the real-time P2P energy trading, such as bus voltage violations and line overload. To handle these problems, this work first formulates the real-time P2P energy trading problem as a spatio-temporally constrained stochastic optimization problem by considering ESS and the spatial physical network constraints. To deal with the uncertainties online, a modified Lyapunov optimization method is innovatively proposed to approximately reformulate the stochastic optimization problem into an online one by relaxing the time-coupling constraints. Compared with the state-of-the-art online methods, the proposed one renders more flexibility and better performance for the real-time P2P energy market operation. Additionally, to protect the prosumers' privacy, an online distributed algorithm based on the consensus alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is developed to solve the reformulated online problem by decoupling the spatial constraints. The theoretical near-optimal performance guarantee of the proposed online distributed algorithm is derived, and its performance can be further improved by minimizing the performance gap. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed online distributed algorithm can guarantee the fast, stable, and safe long-term operation of the real-time P2P energy market.