Balancing variable supply with flexible demand

Panel: 4. Mobility, transport, and smart and sustainable cities

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Dina Subkhankulova, University College London, United Kingdom
Mark Barrett, University College London (UCL), United Kingdom
Artem Baklanov, International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA), Austria
David McCollum, International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA), Austria
Ed Manley, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
, United Kingdom

Abstract

The UK electricity system is undergoing a significant transformation. On the supply side, increasing penetration of renewable energy resources raises concerns for grid stability due to their intermittency. On the demand side, transportation and heating electrification as well as small scale electricity generators are making demand side more unpredictable. This challenges the traditional way of balancing electricity in the grid, whereby supply matches demand.

Demand-side management (DSM) can offer a promising solution to the above problems by coordinating electricity consumption with variable supply from renewable resources. Certain technologies like plug-in electric vehicles can be delayed in operation and hence offer a natural source of flexibility to the grid.

Decentralised control mechanisms have been shown to work well for isolated systems, whereby a single aggregator is managing multiple consumers with flexible demand technologies. However, in reality aggregators interact in the wholesale electricity market. This work explores the value of the proposed decentralised control methods in the context of the interacting electricity system in the UK, where utilities compete for cheap electricity in the wholesale market.

Two types of suppliers were considered: a traditional vertically integrated one (with dispatchable power generator) and a green supplier (in possession of renewable generation technology). The modelling was able to show that pure decentralised control is highly difficult to achieve in the context of interacting electricity markets. Furthermore, with enough dispatchable capacity or flexible resources, the traditional supplier profited from increasing demand peaks in the system. A more diversified energy generation portfolio can lead to a more stable electricity system under demand-side management as the signalling differs for different aggregators.