Abstract
Residential consumers are moving to the center of electricity systems and their flexibility is seen as a key resource to integrate renewable energy sources and support the grid. However, residential flexibility capacities are not homogeneous, as they depend on household appliances, comfort patterns, occupancy, and climate conditions. Here, we calculate the technical flexibility capacities of 45 consumer types in mainland Spain, organised according to income and regional criteria. We show that flexibility gaps exist at both regional and socioeconomic (income) levels with flexibility differences of up to 10 times more capacity between the household groups from the lowest to the highest capacities. These geographical and socioeconomic gaps in flexibility can lead to distortions in national markets and have the potential to exclude citizens from the provision of flexibility services. Our results show in quantitative terms that a consumer-centered approach without considering correcting measures nor these gaps in drafting energy policies may lead to increasing inequality levels in the residential sector. Under an economic competitive paradigm, households with lower income levels or located in regions with lower flexibility potential may be excluded from the provision of flexibility to the detriment of households with larger potential, raising justice concerns in a flexibility-based energy transition.
Highlights
If we aim to stay under a 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels climate scenario, Renewable Energy Sources (RES) will supply over 85% of electricity by 2050 (IPCC, 2018)
Significant geographical and seasonal variations exist in the flexibility of residential consumers in Spain
Centralised services benefit from the homogeneity of the flexible resources across the territory, providing better commitment and dispatch options for system operators
Summary
If we aim to stay under a 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels climate scenario, Renewable Energy Sources (RES) will supply over 85% of electricity by 2050 (IPCC, 2018) This means a dramatic increase in the penetration of RES at the transmission and sub-transmission level (wind, hydro and large PV units) and in the form of distributed generation, connected into the distribution grids, such as small scale PV combined with storage technologies (Rodriguez-Garcia et al, 2019). Demand side management and demand response are forms of providing additional ancillary services to the grid, either through direct or indirect incentives given to consumers (O’Connell et al, 2014) These resources have promising impacts on markets and system operations as well as introducing new opportunities for business models such as aggregators, energy communities, and energy services companies (Burger and Luke, 2017). Several initiatives have been created to introduce the figure of the aggregator, allowing economies of scale in market participation (Burger and Luke, 2017), as well as to promote flexibility markets (Rodriguez-Garcia et al, 2019), and energy communities (Roby and Dibb, 2019)
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