Integration of Demand-Side Flexibility into Smart Grids

Dear Colleagues,

In the last decade, the penetration of renewable energies, including wind and solar, has been increasing in power systems all over the world. Increasing the intermittency and volatility of the supply side, the demand-side flexibility is a practical solution to hedge against uncertain renewable power. In the demand side, there are structural flexibility potentials in different sectors, including residential, commercial, agricultural, and industrial sectors. Additionally, increasing the penetration of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV), the demand response programs of responsive PEVs have attracted much attention. Therefore, new studies should be conducted to unlock the flexibility potentials of the demand sectors. In the residential sector, electrically operated heating–cooling systems, e.g., heat pumps and air conditioning, have great potentials for power system flexibility. In the commercial sector, e.g., supermarket refrigerators and data centers, heat waste can be recovered to provide power system flexibility. Regarding the agricultural sectors, there are considerable flexibility potentials in the irrigation systems of agricultural lands and dairy farms. The industries, including both light and heavy industries, exhibit considerable flexibility potentials in industrial processes. In this way, cement manufactories, metal smelting plants, and food industries can be addressed. Regarding PEVs, smart parking lots play an important role in power system flexibility in the near future. The parking lots can be equipped with smart charging stations to optimize charging/discharging strategies of PEVs, providing power system flexibility.

Unlocking flexibility potentials of different sectors, power flexibilities are integrated into electricity market floors. To trade power flexibilities, different market floors are defined, including day-ahead, intraday, and balancing markets, to adjust electricity consumption based on renewable power availability. In this way, flexibility potentials are integrated into the market floors hierarchically based on long, mid, and short notices. The notices are organized based on renewable power availability.

In this context, the main scope of this Special Issue is to collect new methods applicable in demand-side management to provide power flexibility for electricity markets with high penetration of renewable power. Review papers are also welcomed. Multidisciplinary research and cutting-edge approaches are invited to address the challenges raised by modern power systems and deregulated energy markets.

Dr. Hessam Golmohamadi
Dr. Hossein Farahmand
Guest Editors

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