The electrification of society increases pressure on Dutch distribution grids, causing local congestion that limits renewable integration and economic growth. Distributed energy resource flexibility can mitigate congestion, but its effectiveness varies strongly by location and is poorly understood due to uncertainty in incentives, regulation, user behavior, and technical capability. This research develops a co-simulation framework combining AC power-flow modeling with a stochastic, agent-based flexibility state evolution model using Monte Carlo sampling. Location- and time-specific financial incentives are applied to assess how incentivized distributed flexibility responds to congestion and where congestion robustly remains. Results show that while technical flexibility capacity is often sufficient, congestion can persist due to local disparities in incentives, behavior, capability, and spatial correlation of flexibility providers—especially for highly local congestion low in the distribution hierarchy. The framework identifies where distributed flexibility is inadequate and where additional, strategically placed flexibility or storage is needed, supporting congestion-efficient planning and targeted congestion management in distribution grids.
https://github.com/developerDuncan/Assessing-congestion-patterns-and-flexibility-reactions.git ... Read more