With recent developments of growing renewable electricity production and changes in consumption in the Uppsala municipality, demand-side-flexibility (DSF) can be one approach to relieve stress on the electricity grid. DSF can be achieved by different methods, such as load shifting, peak clipping, and others, and can additionally be applied in different sectors.
The sector of power to heat primarily includes centralized and decentralized heat generation for buildings. The sector of EV-charging includes both private and public charging, where different user behavior and charging power play a role. Industry processes combine a variety of different activities in manufacturing, life science, agriculture as well as IT and services.
To quantify DSF, different indicators and methods exist. Generally, methods in previous research projects vary depending on the research focus. The most common way to measure DSF is using the amount of power reduced or a temporal measurement, of how long the flexibility can be sustained. Additionally, the costs or effort to activate the flexibility can be considered as a qualitative measurement.
To estimate the amount of flexibility for each of the sectors, several sources of data and assumptions were used. Depending on the complexity of the calculations, some calculations vary in their certainty to be accurate. Also, the different sectors were categorized with a qualitative indicator to determine their effort of activation and technical feasibility.
The estimations show that private EV-charging and the industry cluster life sciences have the biggest potential flexibility in terms of energy. In terms of time, the industry cluster of retail, tourism and hospitality show the longest possible flexible duration. Power to heat, both district heating and decentralized heating, plays a less important role in terms of energy than expected.
Solution proposals to increase the DSF capacity in the coming years are different for each sector. Generally, a better overall communication and engagement between consumers and producers are part of the recommendations.
Targets for 2030 are estimated by considering realistic expectations of growth and user behavior. All of the sectors show a growth in flexibility potential towards 2030, some of which are due to an increasing trend of electrification of the sector overall.
Uppsala University, 2022. , p. 57