A Distributed Clearing Model for Hierarchical Electricity Markets Based on the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers

With the ongoing development of China’s unified electricity market system, the coordination between national and provincial markets has become a critical issue. This paper proposes a distributed market clearing mechanism based on the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) to address discrepancies in objectives, dispatch authority, and boundary information between hierarchical markets. The approach integrates a centralized modeling framework with a distributed and parallel solution strategy, enabling efficient coordination and decentralized optimization across market levels. Case studies on three-province and six-province systems validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, demonstrating improved computational efficiency and scalability without compromising solution accuracy. The results indicate that the method supports robust multi-level dispatch under high renewable penetration and system disturbances, offering a practical balance between centralized coordination and local autonomy.