Issues and challenges in smart-grid market operation and simulation

Smart-Grid has been a buzzword in the power industry for some time. While smart-grid could mean differently to different entities, our understanding of it has been quite limited. In this paper, we describe the identifiable developments that seem to relate to so-called smart-grid and that can have impact on the grid and market operations. Obviously, not all developments around smart-grid would have meaningful impact on the market operation, while those that do have impact, have varying degrees of impact, depending on many factors. These various developments include, but not limited to, substation automation, phasor measurement, smart appliance, demand response, electric vehicles (P(H)EV), energy storage, micro-grid etc. We, then, categorize them based on their impact on specific part of power system, such as transmission and distribution, generation and load. We further select those developments that can have significant impact on the electricity market operation as well as market simulation. We then try to present various issues and challenges associated with these selected developments in terms of incorporating them in the market operation and simulation, to account accurately for their unique physical characteristics and economic nature.