Cooperative Planning of Transmission Network and Energy Storage Considering Carbon‐Aware Demand Response: A Bi‐Level Robust Framework

High renewable energy penetration poses significant challenges to supply‐demand balancing in transmission networks, making transmission‐storage cooperative planning (TSCP) a crucial strategy for mitigating renewable variability. Meanwhile, the carbon reduction potential on the demand side remains insufficiently explored. Coordinating grid‐side resource planning with demand response can enhance system flexibility and support deep decarbonization. To address this, this study develops a TSCP model integrated with carbon‐aware demand response under a bi‐level robust optimization framework. The upper level performs robust TSCP under source–load uncertainty, leveraging battery and hydrogen storage to smooth renewable output fluctuations, while the lower level adjusts user‐side electricity consumption in response to price signals to reduce emissions. A dynamic carbon pricing model is proposed based on carbon emission flow analysis, integrated with locational marginal pricing to form a unified electricity‐carbon price signal that stimulates low‐carbon responsiveness on the demand side. A nested alternating optimization procedure with column‐and‐constraint generation (NAOP‐C&CG) algorithm is developed for an efficient solution. Case studies on the Northwest China HRP‐38 system show that the proposed method reduces total system cost by 48.47%, decreases the load shedding rate by 0.92%, and improves renewable energy utilization by 6.6%. Furthermore, it achieves CO 2 emission reductions of 10.82 Mt and 9.4 Mt compared to fixed and conventional ladder‐type carbon pricing schemes, respectively.