Demand response in electrically heated houses
Basic information
Project ID: AEE-2017-25
Students: Ville Julin, Esa Myrttinen, Olli Vaniala, Jari Heimonen, Jalmari Laaksonen
Project manager: Ville Julin
Instructor: Matti Lehtonen
Other advisors: Jonne Jäppinen, Jan Segerstam and Olli Huotari
Starting date: 5.1.2017
Completion date: 17.5.2017
Objective
The scope of our project was to investigate how the electric heated households can be used as part of demand response today. To be able to do this investigation, it requires understanding from quite wide area of different topics, from beginning of the control of a single electric heater to Nordic electricity markets.
Main investigation areas were capacity and control of electric heating and implementation of demand response in a big scale. Latter area includes revenue models to profit from demand response, and methods for managing individual loads and aggregating households to bigger clusters.
We did a literature study which combines previous investigations and proposes optimal ways to implement DR technology. Because the scope of the project was very wide, also investigated areas were wide. For example, in order to control electric heating optimally to save money, user has to know how different electricity markets operate.
One of our main findings was that DR has a huge potential market in Finland alone, but it’s implementation phase is challenging. One reason is the lack of standards and common protocols. At the moment, only few service providers exist. Positive driver for DR is growth of renewables and EUs laws and regulations. Our study gathers information on how to control different loads for DR purposes and suggests a method (Central Management System) for aggregating households to clusters. Also different markets were analysed for use of DR and a new business model was studied to enter the DR markets. This study can be used as a guideline for further research of DR and tool for developing DR solutions.
Summary of results
Demand response is already possible in technical sense and it provides business opportunities and new business models for the electricity retailers. Currently only few DR providers exist. Challenge is the big scale implementation and how to get the households interested in DR. A positive driver for DR are the EU guidelines and legislation which supports the growth of renewables, smarter grids and liberalized markets. Also growing trend in home automation helps in implementing DR.
Documents