Dynamic Pricing, Advanced Metering, and Demand Response in Electricity Markets

Presents an overview and analysis of the possible approaches to bringing an active demand side into electricity markets. Part of a series of research reports that examines energy issues facing California

New insights for setting up contractual options for demand side flexibility

This paper exploits the Duration-of-Use of the demand patterns as a key concept for dealing with demand side flexibility. Starting from the consideration that fine-grained energy metering is not used at the point of supply of the electricity consumers, i.e., the granularity of the energy measured (at time steps of 15 minutes, 30 minutes or one hour) is not sufficient to represent the variability of the demand patterns, event-based energy metering (EDM) is indicated as a viable option to provide a very detailed reconstruction of the demand patterns. In particular, the use of EDM enables high-quality tracking of the demand peaks with a reduced number of data with respect to the ones needed to measure energy at regular time steps for reaching a similar peak tracking capability. From the EDM outcomes, a new class of options for setting up tariffs or contracts for flexibility, based on the demand duration curve, is envisioned

New insights for setting up contractual options for demand side flexibility

This paper exploits the Duration-of-Use of the demand patterns as a key concept for dealing with demand side flexibility. Starting from the consideration that fine-grained energy metering is not used at the point of supply of the electricity consumers, i.e., the granularity of the energy measured (at time steps of 15 minutes, 30 minutes or one hour), the event-based energy metering (EDM) is indicated as a viable option to provides a very detailed reconstruction of the demand patterns. The use of EDM enables high-quality tracking of the demand peaks with a reduced number of data with respect to the ones needed to measure energy at regular time steps for reaching a similar peak tracking capability. From the EDM outcomes, a new class of options for setting up tariffs or contracts for flexibility, based on the demand duration curve, is envisioned

Meter Scoping Study

This report presents a summary of metering technology and cost information from past studies in an attempt to identify key barriers to more widespread implementation

Combined Effort Opportunities of Aggregated Demand Response Flexibility and Energy Savings in Households

This paper analyses possible synergies between demand response flexibility programmes and energy savings delivered by households. In the fra-mework of the energy transition, European Union (EU) directives are endorsing energy consumers to become full-fledged participants of the energy market, mostly via independent aggregator intermediaries. The flexibility aggregators have a very arduous role in collecting, optimising and settling aggregated flexibility delivered from heterogenous sources on the energy market. Novel business models incorporating both flexibility and energy savings opportunities from household consumers could deliver revenue diversification for flexibility aggregators and support them in overcoming technical and motivational challenges for activating consumers in the energy market. This paper discusses the main pillars for a sustainable flexibility aggregator business model which sums up the potential for flexibility placement on energy, ancillary services and energy savings markets. The main challenge identified in this work are the requirements for programme establishment, allowing the recognition and proper interpretation of energy savings triggered by short-term events and obtained by an aggregator via explicit demand response actions. This paper proposes possible solutions for a joint venture of a flexibility and energy savings aggregator, thus alleviating possible data collection problems. Collaborative efforts have been recognised in the establishment and maintenance of information and communication technologies and infrastructure, therefore facilitating continuous monitoring and verification of flexibility programmes which are able to deliver energy savings

Enabling Micro-level Demand-Side Grid Flexiblity in Resource Constrained Environments

The increased penetration of uncertain and variable renewable energy presents various resource and operational electric grid challenges. Micro-level (household and small commercial) demand-side grid flexibility could be a cost-effective strategy to integrate high penetrations of wind and solar energy, but literature and field deployments exploring the necessary information and communication technologies (ICTs) are scant. This paper presents an exploratory framework for enabling information driven grid flexibility through the Internet of Things (IoT), and a proof-of-concept wireless sensor gateway (FlexBox) to collect the necessary parameters for adequately monitoring and actuating the micro-level demand-side. In the summer of 2015, thirty sensor gateways were deployed in the city of Managua (Nicaragua) to develop a baseline for a near future small-scale demand response pilot implementation. FlexBox field data has begun shedding light on relationships between ambient temperature and load energy consumption, load and building envelope energy efficiency challenges, latency communication network challenges, and opportunities to engage existing demand-side user behavioral patterns. Information driven grid flexibility strategies present great opportunity to develop new technologies, system architectures, and implementation approaches that can easily scale across regions, incomes, and levels of development

Demand response performance and uncertainty: A systematic literature review

The present review has been carried out, resorting to the PRISMA methodology, analyzing 218 published articles. A comprehensive analysis has been conducted regarding the consumer's role in the energy market. Moreover, the methods used to address demand response uncertainty and the strategies used to enhance performance and motivate participation have been reviewed. The authors find that participants will be willing to change their consumption pattern and behavior given that they have a complete awareness of the market environment, seeking the optimal decision. The authors also find that a contextual solution, giving the right signals according to the different behaviors and to the different types of participants in the DR event, can improve the performance of consumers' participation, providing a reliable response. DR is a mean of demand-side management, so both these concepts are addressed in the present paper. Finally, the pathways for future research are discussed.This article is a result of the project RETINA (NORTE-01-0145- FEDER-000062), supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). We also acknowledge the work facilities and equipment provided by GECAD research center (UIDB/00760/2020) to the project team, and grants CEECIND/02887/2017 and SFRH/BD/144200/2019.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

RISK MITIGATION CAPABILITY OF FLEXIBILITY PERFORMANCE CONTRACTS FOR DEMAND RESPONSE IN ELECTRICITY SYSTEMS

The transition of the energy system increases the urgency to cope with the intermittency of renewable energy sources to keep the electricity network balanced. Demand Response (DR) measures are a promising approach to align the electricity consumption, especially of industrial consumers, with current electricity supply. While adequate information systems (IS) are already in place to dynamically adapt electricity consumption patterns, industrial consumers are still reluctant to implement DR measures due to uncertainty of their financial performance. Nevertheless, studies on risk transfer instruments related to DR investments are still scarce. To con-tribute to the closure of this research gap, we examine the risk transfer capability of Flexibility Performance Contracts (FPC). We derive cash flow structures for representative FPC designs, calculate risk premiums and enable the comparison of corresponding risk profiles. Presented FPCs are evaluated based on a real-world industrial use case. Thereby, the financial perfor-mance is modelled stochastically, taking electricity price fluctuation, industrial process charac-teristics and IS-backed decisions into account. Our results reveal that FPCs represent well-suited risk transfer instruments for DR measures. Thus, FPCs have the potential to accelerate the application of DR measures and therefore to complement existing capabilities of IS in the context of electricity networks