Research on a Low-Carbon Optimization Strategy for Regional Power Grids Considering a Dual Demand Response of Electricity and Carbon

Considering the characteristics of the power system, where “the source moves with the load”, the load side is primarily responsible for the carbon emissions of the regional power grid. Consequently, users’ electricity consumption behavior has a significant impact on system carbon emissions. Therefore, this paper proposes a multi-objective bi-level optimization strategy for source-load coordination, considering dual demand responses for both electricity and carbon. The upper layer establishes a multi-objective low-carbon economic dispatch model for power grid operators, aiming to minimize the system’s total operating cost, the total direct carbon emissions of the power grid, and the disparity in regional carbon emissions. In the lower layer, a low-carbon economic dispatch model for load aggregators is established to minimize the total cost for load aggregators. To obtain the dynamic carbon emission factor signal, a complex power flow tracking method that considers the power supply path is proposed, and a carbon flow tracking model is established. NSGA-II is used to obtain the Pareto optimal frontier set for the upper model, and the ‘optimal’ scheme is determined based on the fuzzy satisfaction decision. The example analysis demonstrates that the interactive carbon reduction effect under the guidance of dual signals is the most effective. This approach fully exploits the carbon reduction potential of the flexible load, enhancing both the economic efficiency and low-carbon operation of the system.