English

Online Electricity Pricing from Frequency Measurements

Systems and Control 2026-04-14 v1 Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science Systems and Control Optimization and Control

Abstract

Frequency dynamics in power systems reflect active power imbalance in real time, thereby providing an instantaneous signal to inform electricity pricing. However, existing real-time markets operate on much slower timescales and fail to exploit this signal. In this letter, we develop integrated market--frequency dynamics that enable online pricing directly from frequency measurements. Representing the real-time market as a dynamic price-discovery process, and integrating this process with the grid frequency dynamics, we derive an explicit price formation mechanism from frequency measurements. This mechanism manifests as a distributed PID-like controller for each generator, where frequency response is driven and remunerated by electricity prices derived solely from local frequency measurements.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.09931,
  title  = {Online Electricity Pricing from Frequency Measurements},
  author = {Xinwei Liu and Vladimir Dvorkin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.09931},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

4 pages, 3 figures, accepted to PowerUp Conference

R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:03:54.333Z