30% seminar Decision Support for Congestion Control using Direct Activation of mFRR bids

Transmission System Operators (TSOs) control rooms form a system that combines human operators and tools (SCADA measurements, forecasting tools, etc.). When operators take manual control actions, they base their decisions on their expertise and inputs they get from the tools. Hence, as a power grid is a complex system, the decision-making of control room operators can be facilitated by decision support tools.
In parallel, to make more efficient use of grid resources, in European balancing markets, manual Frequency Restoration Reserve (mFRR) can be manually activated, with Direct Activation, to control congestion. To go beyond the cost-optimal solution that would be selected by automated processes, we explored additional criteria that control room operators would consider when managing congestion with mFRR bids. These results were used to develop optimization strategies that incorporate operators’ expertise to propose several bid activation strategies. A partial implementation in a test environment was made to illustrate these strategies and identify limitations.