Energy Demand Management in Households

Increasing the share of renewable energy sources, electric charging stations, battery systems and adaptive end-users in the network delivers both technological and business challenges and ultimately presents an opportunity to develop a smart grid system for all electrical energy users.

Precisely because of the new technological progress, our main objective is to ensure a smart energy grid, which would guarantee a safe, reliable and quality energy supply at any time.

The NEDO project represents a partnership between Japanese agency NEDO and Slovenian transmission system operator ELES. The project has started in November 2016 and will last until April 2020. In addition to ELES, a large number of stakeholders from Slovenia are participating in the project, which is why it can rightfully be called a national project and the only one of its kind in Europe. The project is dedicated to the implementation of a smart grid on the national level using integrated and centrally managed cloud solutions.

From the aspect of the electricity system, the benefits of the project are in the use of advanced solutions that can respond to the challenges of modern electricity systems in the light of sustainable development using environment-friendly solutions. Instead of investing in grid expansion, the use of advanced secondary equipment, information and communication technologies and cloud solutions will enable better exploitation of the existing grid. Consumers will receive a higher quality of electricity supply and the option of actively participating in electricity markets and system services. By informing consumers and utilizing advanced electricity management systems, the focus is on the efficient use of electricity.

The NEDO project is aimed at gaining knowledge and experience in Energy Demand Management in households, studying user’s behavior at a time of high energy demand/ peak consumption time. The purpose of the project was to identify the requirements and modalities for the integration of various information systems and different types of demand management devices using three different demand management methods.

The NEDO project has included 830 end-users from 10 municipalities, which were included in the advanced consumption measuring & control system. Active consumers have thus become a part of an important international project that covers both Slovenian and Japanese companies and gives guidance for the development of advanced tariffs on a national level.

Active consumers were divided into three groups according to the way of receiving information about critical peak tariff:

• Group A (730 active consumers – communication via SMS)
• Group B (50 active consumers communication via SMS and INSTALLED DLC devices) and
• Group C (50 active consumers communication through SMS and installed HEMS of the device).

100 active consumers had remote-controlled devices installed and the remaining 730 at the time of activation received SMS with information about the time of critical peak tariff and had to manually exclude the electric consumers. The active consumers were informed about critical peak tariffs by SMS, emails, and application. The message included the precise timing of the activation and longitude of the critical peak tariff. Those active consumers who had the control devices installed experienced automatic turn-off electrical equipment (heat pumps, electric boilers, air conditioners, washing and drying machines, etc.) during the most expensive critical peak tariff.

Development of the software for energy demand management (Deman Response Control System – DRCS). Functionalities of DRCS: combining of all the consumers in one IT platform, reception and management of electricity demand for all households and small business customers, forecasts of electricity consumption and consumption potential for the next 48 hours based on anonymous data collection within a 15-minute interval, remote management of control devices (DLC and HEMS), manual or automatic activations from iDMS (an information system of the transmission system that offers functionality to register the peak consumption in next 48 hours and in case of the peak consumption to activate critical peak tariff in demand response control system), forwarding messages about activations to all active customers involved (830 people), review of consumers reaction/behavior after activation.

Installation of ComBox.L DLC devices, which communicate with the DRCS system via LoRaWAN technology. For the project’s purposes, Solvera lynx has built a LoRaWAN network, installing 7 external and 3 internal base stations, which were connected wirelessly to remote-controlled devices.

Installation of the energy management equipment (Home Energy Management System) in households. These devices automatically disconnected energy-consuming devices during the peak tariff at households.

The pilot project was launched to build advanced infrastructure that will ensure higher-quality services for electricity consumers using sustainable and environment-friendly solutions. The pilot project has started in 2018 with a total of 50 activations hours of critical peak tariff and 21 activations of system compensation. Pilot Project has delivered an excellent starting point for demand management schemes and solution concepts. The average size of the consumption adjustment achieved: 500W Active consumers who had remote-control devices and 250 W Active consumers who did not have remote-control devices

In 2018, the saving of all active consumers reached EUR 8,419 due to the including into the new scheme of demand management with new critical peak tariff. The electricity consumption savings represented 115 MWh compared to the previous year, i.e. 2.4% reduction in electricity consumption. The saving of each active consumer was EUR 10.2 per measuring point for the entire year.

The project’s final analysis showed that for 1 MW of adaptive demand the following needs to be ensured:

• 114 (Winter) and 71,454 (summer) of active consumers in group A and
• 4,097 (Winter) and 3,621 (summer) active consumers in groups B and C

Precisely because of the new technological progress, our main objective is to ensure a smart energy grid, which would guarantee a safe, reliable and quality energy supply at any time.