Flexibility by prosumers is one of the key enablersin a successful transition from the traditional power systems to the future smart grid. Prosumers are characterized by distributed customers that over time act as both producers and consumers, e.g. customers with a rooftop PV installation.
New flexibility on the consumer side refers to demand response technology, building management systems, and intelligent houses. On the production side it means controllable production, ability to provide grid support, and robustness. These characteristics are materialized in delayed consumption (for instance setting the washing machine for when the electricity price is lowest), advance/delayed heating, curtailment of solar production, reactive voltage support, and fault ride through respectively.
An extensive flexibility is enabled through a high degree of local intelligence and computation power in loads, generation units, and in buildings. In order to have a significant impact on the future smart grid, prosumers’ flexibility must be aggregated in a coordinated manner. This requires a developed information and communication technology (ICT) network thus each prosumer unit also must be able to handle external communication as well as possess awareness of its neighbours (situational awareness).
Our research focuses on developing control methods that take advantage of the potential flexibility through modelling, model predictive and forecasting methods, experimental test, consumer relationship, and data analysis in order to generate new understandings of consumer behaviour as well as to develop new technologies enabling consumer participation and smart grid integration.
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