Identification and quantification of the flexibility potential of a complex industrial process for ancillary services provision

Abstract

As the share of variable renewable energy sources in the electricity generation mix increases, so does the need for power system flexibility. Demand side flexibility has been identified as a great opportunity to facilitate the integration of this volatile production. An important part of demand side flexibility is the modulation of the consumption of industrial processes. With the emergence of ancillary services markets, operating industrial processes in a flexible manner might generate additional value. This paper proposes a flexibility assessment tool to quantify the potential of a given industrial plant for grid services provision. We start by formulating the feasible operating region of a given industrial asset, generating a set of operating points and their corresponding power ramping potential. A weekly simulation is then performed which leads to a set of most-observed operating points, themselves leading to a set of potential ancillary services bids from the industrial process.