Estimating impact of price-based demand response in contemporary distribution systems

Abstract

Price-based Demand Response (PBDR) programs have been envisaged to motivate customers for changing their consumption patterns by reducing peak demand against financial gains. DR is an emerging strategy to deal with peak demand, energy management, line congestion, reliability, security and economy of contemporary distribution systems. Therefore, it becomes essential to assess overall impact of DR prior to its implementation. However, the job is quite tedious as demand of the customers also depends upon socio-economic factors, human psychology, ambient conditions, etc., besides the dynamic price signal. This paper proposes a comprehensive, more realistic, simple and adaptive mean price-based DR modelling to assess overall impact of PBDR while addressing stochastic demand, and price elasticity of demand (PED) for individual customer. The model suggests dynamic PED to capture the stochastic DR of customers against real-time price signal using historical data. In addition, several DR indices are suggested to assess the impact of DR on several stakeholders. The study on a standard test bench reveals that proposed methodology is simple, robust, quick, and can deliver tangible information in the interest of concerned stakeholders.