Linking meters and markets: Roles and incentives to support a flexible demand side

Present trends in the development of electricity systems are expected to generate a growing need for flexibility in decentralised resources, including demand response. In order to enable decentralised actors to create value, the organisation of markets and incentives should incorporate these new participants. The roll-out of smart metering to electricity consumers is an important precondition to establishing a flexible demand side and will provide essential information flows. On the basis of current incentive structures and related risks, however, the pass-through of information and value from wholesale market participants to the demand side is mostly infeasible, resulting in flexibility tasks being aggregated and delegated to balancing responsible wholesale traders. This analysis focuses on whether current incentives and roles are appropriate and where the design could be improved to establish a flexible demand side with a particular focus on the Danish case. Design-related barriers are identified that affect expected value, associated risks, and the distribution of responsibilities. This serves as a basis to define policy options in the context of Nordic electricity markets. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

System and market integration of wind power in Denmark

Denmark has more than 10 years’ of experience with a wind share of approximately 20 per cent. During these 10 years, electricity markets have been subject to developments with a key focus on integrating wind power as well as trading electricity with neighbouring countries. This article introduces a methodology to analyse and understand the current market integration of wind power and concludes that the majority of Danish wind power in the period 2004–2008 was used to meet the domestic demand. Based on a physical analysis, at least 63 per cent of Danish wind power was used domestically in 2008. To analyse the remaining 37 per cent, we must apply a market model to identify cause–effect relationships. The Danish case does not illustrate any upper limit for wind power integration, as also illustrated by Danish political targets to integrate 50 per cent by 2020. In recent years, Danish wind power has been financed solely by the electricity consumers, while maintaining production prices below the EU average. The net influence from wind power has been as low as 1–3 per cent of the consumer price. Keywords: Wind power, Wind power integration, Wind power cost, Energy system analysis, Electricity market

Phase-wise enhanced voltage support from electric vehicles in a Danish low-voltage distribution grid

High deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) imposes great challenges for the distribution grids, especially in unbalanced systems with notable voltage variations which detrimentally affect security of supply. On the other hand, with development of Vehicle-to-Grid technology, EVs may be able to provide numerous services for grid support, e.g., voltage control. Implemented electronic equipment will allow them to exchange reactive power for autonomous voltage support without communicating with the distribution system operator or influencing the available active power for primary transportation function. This paper proposes a voltage dependent EV reactive power control and quantifies its impact on a real Danish low-voltage grid. The observed network is a heavily unbalanced three-phase four-wire grid modeled in Matlab SimPowerSystems based on real hourly measurement data. Simulations are performed in order to evaluate phase-to-neutral voltage support benefits as well as to address neutral-to-ground values, active power losses and the unbalances at the same time. The analysis shows that reactive power supportboth raises minimum phase-to-neutral voltage magnitudes and improves voltage dispersion while the energy losses are not notably increased. Further on, since the control is voltage dependent, provided reactive power is unequal among the phases leading to greater support on heavily loaded phases and decreased unbalances caused by residential consumption. Hence, implementation of such a phase-wise enhanced voltage support could defer the need for grid reinforcement in case of large EV penetration rates, especially in highly unbalanced networks

Market integration of wind power in electricity system balancing

In most countries markets for electricity are divided into wholesale markets on which electricity is traded before the operation hour, and real-time balancing markets to handle the deviations from the wholesale trading. So far, wind power has been sold only on the wholesale market and has been known to increase the need for balancing. This article analyses whether wind turbines in the future should participate in the balancing markets and thereby play a proactive role. The analysis is based on a real-life test of proactive participation of a wind farm in West Denmark. It is found that the wind farm is able to play a proactive role regarding downward regulation and thereby increase profits.In most countries markets for electricity are divided into wholesale markets on which electricity is traded before the operation hour, and real-time balancing markets to handle the deviations from the wholesale trading. So far, wind power has been sold only on the wholesale market and has been known to increase the need for balancing. This article analyses whether wind turbines in the future should participate in the balancing markets and thereby play a proactive role. The analysis is based on a real-life test of proactive participation of a wind farm in West Denmark. It is found that the wind farm is able to play a proactive role regarding downward regulation and thereby increase profits