Integrating user requirements in uni-directional congestion mitigation algorithms for smart grids

The flexibility of many electrical devices allows mechanisms to be deployed that mitigate grid congestion. For such mechanisms, control algorithms utilising uni-directional communication provide regulatory and privacy advantages over bi-directional approaches. This paper presents and examines the effectiveness of a novel uni-directional congestion mitigating measure named uni-directional auctions. This measure considers individual user requirements and gives priority to devices with a higher relative need for grid capacity. Simulations of 10 households show that the proposed uni-directional auctions are 94.3% as effective as their bi-directional counterpart.