Decentralised Electricity Markets and Proactive Customer Behaviour

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 781
Author(s):  
Jens Maiwald ◽  
Tino Schuette

The energy transition in Germany takes part in decentral structures. With the ongoing integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) into the electricity supply system, supply-side is therefore becoming increasingly decentral and volatile due to the specific generation characteristics. A rather inflexible demand-side, on the other hand, increases the effort to gain the necessary equilibrium between generation and consumption. This paper discusses how consumer behaviour can be influenced by real-time pricing to align demand with generation. Therefore, a combination of two different approaches is used, (I) The Cellular Approach (CA) and (II) Agent Based Modelling (ABM). A model is set up considering a regional energy market, where regional electricity products can be traded peer-to-peer regarding each consumer’s preferences. The observation is made for a whole distribution grid including all types of consumers. The investigations show that energy purchases can be stimulated individually by a flexible pricing mechanism and met preferences. Moreover, benefits occur for the whole region and potentials arise to smooth the exchange balance to the superordinate grid level. Running the model for one entire year in a conservative generation scenario, hours of oversupply could be reduced by 18% and the consumption of green electricity generated regionally could be increased by over 125 MWh within the region itself, in comparison to a base scenario.

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 917 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Oureilidis ◽  
Kyriaki-Nefeli Malamaki ◽  
Konstantinos Gallos ◽  
Achilleas Tsitsimelis ◽  
Christos Dikaiakos ◽  
...  

The high proliferation of converter-dominated Distributed Renewable Energy Sources (DRESs) at the distribution grid level has gradually replaced the conventional synchronous generators (SGs) of the transmission system, resulting in emerging stability and security challenges. The inherent characteristics of the SGs are currently used for providing ancillary services (ASs), following the instructions of the Transmission System Operator, while the DRESs are obliged to offer specific system support functions, without being remunerated for these functions, but only for the energy they inject. This changing environment has prompted the integration of energy storage systems as a solution for transfusing new characteristics and elaborating their business in the electricity markets, while the smart grid infrastructure and the upcoming microgrid architectures contribute to the transformation of the distribution grid. This review investigates the existing ASs in transmission system with the respective markets (emphasizing the DRESs’ participation in these markets) and proposes new ASs at distribution grid level, with emphasis to inertial response, active power ramp rate control, frequency response, voltage regulation, fault contribution and harmonic mitigation. The market tools and mechanisms for the procurement of these ASs are presented evolving the existing role of the Operators. Finally, potential barriers in the technical, regulatory, and financial framework have been identified and analyzed.


Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 3074 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Minniti ◽  
Niyam Haque ◽  
Phuong Nguyen ◽  
Guus Pemen

The European energy transition is leading to a transformed electricity system, where Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) will play a substantial role. Renewable Energy Sources (RES) will challenge the key operational obligation of real-time balancing and the need for flexibility will consequently increase. The introduction of a local flexibility market (LFM) would allow the trading of flexibility supplied by both producing and consuming units at the distribution level, providing market access to DERs, a support tool for Distribution System Operators (DSOs) and a value stream for energy suppliers. Aggregators and DSOs for different reasons can enhance the valuation of flexible DERs. Several research papers have assumed aggregators fully interacting with the electricity markets and DSOs contracting services with power system actors. These interactions are still not allowed in many European countries. This article aims to analyze the European regulation to identify the most important enablers and pave the way towards the full exploitation of DER flexibility, culminating in the establishment of an LFM. Therefore, three main stages, emerging from the progressive withdrawal of the current regulatory and market barriers, are identified: (1) enabling the aggregator’s trading, (2) evolution of the DSO’s role, and (3) key-design challenges of an LFM.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis RAMOS ◽  
Fredy GUEVARA ◽  
Marco GUEVARA

Abstract Climate change might affect energy production and therefore the energy security of a country or region. This vulnerability situation may affect Renewable Energy Sources (RES) such as hydroelectric and has consequences on effective energy transition. Since the transition to RES is a key for decarbonizing the economy in line with the Paris Agreement this situation is critical for many countries in which their energy systems are linked to resources strongly affected by climate. The aim of this study is to purpose a vulnerability indicator (VI) to evaluate the electric energy vulnerability of an on-grid system to climate change at national and regional level taking as base the case of study of Colombia, a country with a system based on 70% RES. VI is computed with different variables that may be related to climate change, the energy matrix, and vulnerability. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to select the variables involved in the VI calculation. The VI was calculated for the whole country and the 32 departments (states) showing that the regions with the larger vulnerability correspond to the more energy demanding regions. These vulnerable regions to climate change are more than 50% of the maximum possible vulnerability, meanwhile, the vulnerability of the whole country was estimated as 43%. The analysis was developed for the current situation of Colombia in which there are two regions: interconnected (SIN) and not-interconnected (ZNI) areas.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 1337
Author(s):  
Enea Mele ◽  
Anastasios Natsis ◽  
Aphrodite Ktena ◽  
Christos Manasis ◽  
Nicholas Assimakis

The increasing penetration of electrical vehicles (EVs), on the way to decarbonizing the transportation sector, presents several challenges and opportunities for the end users, the distribution grid, and the electricity markets. Uncontrollable EV charging may increase peak demand and impact the grid stability and reliability, especially in the case of non-interconnected microgrids such as the distribution grids of small islands. On the other hand, if EVs are considered as flexible loads and distributed storage, they may offer Vehicle to Grid (V2G) services and contribute to demand-side management through smart charging and discharging. In this work, we present a study on the penetration of EVs and the flexibility they may offer for services to the grid, using a genetic algorithm for optimum valley filling and peak shaving for the case of a non-interconnected island where the electricity demand is several times higher during the summer due to the influx of tourists. Test cases have been developed for various charging/discharging strategies and mobility patterns. Their results are discussed with respect to the current generating capacity of the island as well as the future case where part of the electricity demand will have to be met by renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic plants, in order to minimize the island’s carbon footprint. Higher EV penetration, in the range of 20–25%, is enabled through smart charging strategies and V2G services, especially for load profiles with a large difference between the peak and low demands. However, the EV penetration and available flexibility is subject to the mobility needs and limited by the population and the size of the road network of the island itself rather than the grid needs and constraints. Limitations and challenges concerning efficient V2G services on a non-interconnected microgrid are identified. The results will be used in the design of a smart charging controller linked to the microgrid’s energy management system.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Jens Maiwald

Aim: This paper aims to describe an approach to develop a simulation model for investigating regional energy markets. Therefore the so called Cellular Approach is combined with the approach of Agent-Based Modelling.Design / Research methods: The model is built as a bottom-up approach for integral load management. Thus, supply factors such as limitations in generation are integrated directly and display flexibility. Thereby each market participant has its own economic interest. By the use of specific behaviour patterns and learning effects each agent in the model can act individually. This enables the market model to simulate how actors behave in changing situations. Conclusions / findings: The model shown in this paper provides an alternative to considerations of energy supply systems via equation-based optimization models. The combination of these two approaches enhances to observe two central aspects of the German energy turnaround, decentralisation and the consumers changing role at the energy market. Originality / value of the article: The Cellular Approach offers potential benefits for integrating renewable energy sources in regional power supply. Often discussed on a technical level, this paper focuses on the economical side of this topic. Moreover, differing to other research activities usually using optimization techniques, an Agent-Based Model is formulated to simulate a regional energy market. In the combination of a supply system primarily based on renewable energy sources and enhanced with different types of energy storage it is possible to simulate a supply system of the future.


Author(s):  
Martin Bichler ◽  
Hans Ulrich Buhl ◽  
Johannes Knörr ◽  
Felipe Maldonado ◽  
Paul Schott ◽  
...  

AbstractEurope’s clean energy transition is imperative to combat climate change and represents an economic opportunity to become independent of fossil fuels. As such, the energy transition has become one of the most important, but also one of the most challenging economic and societal projects today. Electricity systems of the past were characterized by price-inelastic demand and only a small number of large electricity generators. The transition towards intermittent renewable energy sources changes this very paradigm. Future electricity systems will consist of many thousands of electricity generators and consumers that actively participate in markets, offering flexibility to balance variable electricity supply in markets with a high spatial and temporal resolution. These structural changes have ample consequences for market operators, generators, industrial consumers as well as prosumers. While a large body of the literature is devoted to the energy transition in engineering and the natural sciences, it has received relatively little attention in the recent business research literature, even though many of the central challenges for a successful energy transition are at the core of business research. Therefore, we provide an up-to-date overview of key questions in electricity market design and discuss how changes in electricity markets lead to new research challenges in business research disciplines such as accounting, business & information systems engineering, finance, marketing, operations management, operations research, and risk management.


Increasing renewable energy footprints now features prominently in the clean energy transition plan for many countries. Consumer’s Willingness To Pay (WTP) for renewable energy is an important variable in this plan. A concept-centric review of 70 research articles conducted in this study reveals that first and most commonly, consumer’s willingness to pay for renewable energy indicates the social acceptance of renewable energy, quantifying the extent of public financial support for meeting nationally set renewable energy targets. Second, it reflects the preferred attributes of renewable electricity supply in deregulated retail electricity markets. And third, it mirrors the non use values of renewable energy sources. A concept augmented matrix presented in the paper helps understand the most popular valuation techniques used to quantify WTP estimates in included studies. This paper concludes by presenting policy enablers to accelerate renewable energy transition in developing economies - where the transition is still in nascent stages.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (13) ◽  
pp. 3860
Author(s):  
Priyanka Shinde ◽  
Ioannis Boukas ◽  
David Radu ◽  
Miguel Manuel de Manuel de Villena ◽  
Mikael Amelin

In recent years, the vast penetration of renewable energy sources has introduced a large degree of uncertainty into the power system, thus leading to increased trading activity in the continuous intra-day electricity market. In this paper, we propose an agent-based modeling framework to analyze the behavior and the interactions between renewable energy sources, consumers and thermal power plants in the European Continuous Intra-day (CID) market. Additionally, we propose a novel adaptive trading strategy that can be used by the agents that participate in CID market. The agents learn how to adapt their behavior according to the arrival of new information and how to react to changing market conditions by updating their willingness to trade. A comparative analysis was performed to study the behavior of agents when they adopt the proposed strategy as opposed to other benchmark strategies. The effects of unexpected outages and information asymmetry on the market evolution and the market liquidity were also investigated.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 1967
Author(s):  
Gaurav Kumar Roy ◽  
Marco Pau ◽  
Ferdinanda Ponci ◽  
Antonello Monti

Direct Current (DC) grids are considered an attractive option for integrating high shares of renewable energy sources in the electrical distribution grid. Hence, in the future, Alternating Current (AC) and DC systems could be interconnected to form hybrid AC-DC distribution grids. This paper presents a two-step state estimation formulation for the monitoring of hybrid AC-DC grids. In the first step, state estimation is executed independently for the AC and DC areas of the distribution system. The second step refines the estimation results by exchanging boundary quantities at the AC-DC converters. To this purpose, the modulation index and phase angle control of the AC-DC converters are integrated into the second step of the proposed state estimation formulation. This allows providing additional inputs to the state estimation algorithm, which eventually leads to improve the accuracy of the state estimation results. Simulations on a sample AC-DC distribution grid are performed to highlight the benefits resulting from the integration of these converter control parameters for the estimation of both the AC and DC grid quantities.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1114
Author(s):  
Pere Mir-Artigues ◽  
Pablo del Río

The reduction of equipment costs encourages the diffusion of photovoltaic micro-generation, however, proper regulatory measures should be implemented to facilitate self-production dissemination and to promote the emergence of new electricity markets which integrate prosumers. The specific form of these markets will depend on the level of prosumers’ self-sufficiency and the type of grid to which they will be connected. Unfortunately, Spain has been an example of resistance to micro-generation deployment. However, some things have started to change recently, albeit only to a certain extent. This article explains the key elements of the latest regulation of photovoltaic micro-generation in Spain and, through a stylized model, describes the economic behavior of prosumers in such a regulatory framework. It is concluded that this regulation only encourages prosumer plants which are strictly focused on self-sufficiency because it discourages exports and limits capacities and this regulation discourages the smart renewal of the distribution grid because it prevents prosumers from participating in the electricity market. It is recommended that the aforementioned regulatory limits be removed and pilot experiences for the market participation of prosumers be promoted by creating the appropriate technical and regulatory conditions, for example, at the municipal level.


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