In this newsletter Kim Behnke (Deputy Director, Danish District Heating Association) and Henrik Dam (Policy officer, European Commission, DG Energy) remind us why EcoGrid is even more relevant today than it was when the project was launched 4 years ago. Although the final evaluation results of the EcoGrid demonstration have not been finalised as yet, the EcoGrid experts unveil some promising results due to the aggregated demand response from the 1,900 EcoGrid households on Bornholm.
Why do we need a real-time market for distributed energy resources?
– I liked the idea of using real-time power prices to adjust for fluctuations in the generation by motivating the consumers to use less or more electricity even before the EcoGrid project started, says Henrik Dam, Policy officer at the EU Commission, DG Energy.
EcoGrid introduces a new real-time market to remove the barriers that today are preventing small-scale consumers and their power generation from participating in the power balancing market, thus discriminating these customer groups.
– The continuing increase in fluctuating forms of renewable energy and simultaneous phase-out of thermal power plants across Europe has increased the need for new, fast ways of balancing the power system, especially during the critical peak hours, says Kim Behnke, Deputy Director at Danish District heating Association, and one of the key initiators of the EcoGrid project.
– Demand response (DR) is no longer just a nice add-on for the power system.
DR is becoming a mandatory part of the daily operation of the power system, Kim Behnke points out.
– When reducing the response time to 5 minutes, the EcoGrid market is using the fast response nature of demand response to balance and dispatch the power system.
According to Kim Behnke, most projects show that demand response in the form of Time-of-Use has a relatively high success rate, e.g. in the US where several systems are in operation for curtailment of the peak demand to help Peak Shaving. Time-of-Use is a relevant DR regime when there is a need for balancing thermal generation or other predictable resources such as hydropower. Time-of-Use is also a relevant approach when there is a need to avoid grid congestions.
– If DR is to be used for balancing a power system with high and growing penetration of non-scheduled fluctuating renewable power generation, then DR should be in a form of real-time response opportunity based on a clear monitoring and system awareness. Kim Behnke also points out that a real-time market approach, such as EcoGrid, is needed now, even more so than when the idea was born.
Read the full newsletter:
Ecogrid Newsletter 4
Headlines from the News letter:
How EcoGrid differs from other European smart grid field-tests
The EU Commission´s expectations to EcoGrid
The Barometer of Customer Satisfaction
The aggregated demand response of EcoGrid households
Await final evaluation results Await final evaluation results
the perspectives for EcoGrid
The challenge of customer involvement