An automated residential demand response pilot experiment, based on day-ahead dynamic pricing

Abstract

Abstract Dynamic pricing is a popular method to realize demand response. Automated response from smart appliances reduces the comfort impact for the users and hence reduces response fatigue concerns, while improving the price response. However, real-life experience with smart appliances is typically limited to heating and cooling appliances. The Linear pilot was a residential demand response pilot with 240 Belgian families using smart dishwashers, washing machines, tumble dryers and domestic hot water buffers in various experiments. Goal was to evaluate the performance of those smart appliances in real life circumstances for various applications of demand response. The results for the day-ahead dynamic pricing experiments, conducted from September 2013 till July 2014 at 58 families, are presented. These demonstrate a significant shift of the flexible share of the electricity consumption to the lower price periods. The dishwashers outperform the other appliances. The domestic hot water buffer shows the lowest performance in terms of relative cost savings, but its much larger energy consumption translates to larger absolute savings. As the flexible share of the total consumption remains small, the non-smart share represents a financial risk for the consumer. The smart appliances were well received by the users and no response fatigue was observed. However, there was a high variation in the group of pilot participants, both in terms of energy consumption as in terms of flexibility offered.