Incentivizing residential electricity consumers to increase demand during periods of high local solar generation

Abstract

Increasing amounts of distributed electricity generation require new measures to avoid costly grid expansions. This paper presents the results of a field trial in which households received price incentives when adjusting their daily electricity consumption to local electricity generation. Effects are estimated with a matched control group to establish causality and further enable the identification of average load shifting effects. The results show that price incentives are effective in shifting households’ electricity demand to peak electricity supply times, while at the same time overall daily electricity demand is not increased.