Market Failures in Local Flexibility Market Proposals for Distribution Network Congestion Management

Abstract

The steady uptake of PV cells and high-power flexible loads such as electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps can lead to localized network congestion, if their power consumption or feed-in is not controlled well. One potential way that has been proposed to manage this congestion, are so-called Local Flexibility Markets. It is often argued, that these proposals are theoretically efficient, as they are market-based. However, some of these proposals may suffer from design flaws that allow market participants to obtain undue profits at the expense of the network operator. In this contribution, we discuss which kinds of market failures can occur based on theoretical reasoning and demonstrate them in a toy model. Based on this, we argue for a more careful consideration of congestion management options.