Integration of Demand Side Management, Distributed Generation, Renewable Energy Sources and Energy Storages

Background Energy policies are promoting distributed energy resources such as energy efficiency, distributed generation (DG), energy storage devices, and renewable energy resources (RES), increasing the number of DG installations and especially variable output (only partly controllable) sources like wind power, solar, small hydro and combined heat and power. Intermittent generation like wind can cause problems in grids, in physical balances and in adequacy of power. Thus, there are two goals for integrating distributed energy resources locally and globally: network management point of view and energy market objectives. Solutions to decrease the problems caused by the variable output of intermittent resources are to add energy storages into the system, create more flexibility on the supply side to mitigate supply intermittency and load variation, and to increase flexibility in electricity consumption. Combining the different characteristics of these resources is essential in increasing the value of distributed energy resources in the bulk power system and in the energy market. IEA has several Implementing Agreements dealing with distributed generation (DG) (such as wind, photovoltaic, CHP), energy storage and demand side management (DSM). However, the question of how to handle the integration of various distributed energy resources is not actually studied. Objectives The main objective of this Task is to study how to achieve a better integration of flexible demand (Demand Response, Demand Side Management) with Distributed Generation, energy storages and Smart Grids. This would lead to an increase of the value of Demand Response, Demand Side Management and Distributed Generation and a decrease of problems caused by intermittent distributed generation (mainly based on renewable energy sources) in the physical electricity systems and at the electricity market. Approach The first step in the Task was to carry out a scope study collecting information from the existing IEA Agreements, participating countries with the help of country experts and from organized workshops and other sources (research programs, field experience etc), analyzing the information on the basis of the above mentioned objectives and synthesizing the information to define the more detailed needs for the further work. The main output of the first step is this state-of-the art report and the proposal for the future work to be carried out as a second step of the Task. Results Overview of the situation: The main topics discussed are DER and electricity supply, flexibility in electricity demand, communications and IT, integration analytics, regulation, policy and business opportunities as well as market …