The renewable energies expansion over last years, due to the need to bring electricity production towards ever higher levels of green production and the increase of the demand, have brought further stability problems to the main grid. The handling of the integration of these alternative sources and the optimization of the electricity grid have given high attention on the role of demand response program as a key part for the target. The combination of battery storage units with real-time prices is part of the research effort that aims to reduce the instability of the grid and the energy costs of the users.
Literature shows good potential for the control strategies as the relative wide range of technologies developed recently for the scope, even if for the residential customers usually the potential is constrained by the limited controllable loads and their significant share of consumption. However, the aspect of user comfort is not always fully considered leading to less realistic conclusions.
The objective of the work described in the dissertation was then to obtain a reduction in residential energy costs through the optimal scheduling of user appliances supported by the use of battery storage, under a real-time price scheme, while limiting the discomfort for the customer.
Although the first results of applying a real time pricing scheme based on the current variations in price observed in the Iberian wholesale market led only to small profits when not considering additional self-generation, they increased significantly if a small photovoltaic based production is considered, and reached significant cost savings (circa 70%) in periods of high solar generation. But, when applying a real time price following the fluctuations of the renewable energy supply, which produced much higher variations in price, the results improved considerably, reaching cost savings as high as 85%.
The implemented model shows the true relevance of Demand Response and Energy Storage, producing meaningful savings if the supply costs change with the availability of renewable energy supply. With self-generation, the obtained value is even higher in the perspective of the individual customer, maximizing the cost-effectiveness of such investment
