How Smart are 2050 Energy Scenarios Expecting Households to be?
Daniel Quiggin, Loughborough University
The basic idea is to quantify the expectation we have as a society for households to change their energy (electricity) consumption behaviours in the future under different energy scenarios.
Summary
From an extensive literature search there is currently no research that connects high level system design of decarbonised electricity supply scenarios with the functionality of Smart Grids, Decentralised Energy Resources (DERs), Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) and electric heating scenarios. This system will have implications for changes in household behaviour, demand reduction, efficiency measures and Demand Side Management (DSM). This study seeks to close this research gap in order to ascertain the impact on demand profiles of the future and determine the viability of Smart Cities and Smart Grids being able to bring about the required changes to the electricity system. A hybrid top-down bottom-up model of future supply scenarios designed to meet the 80% CO2 reduction by 2050 will be constructed. The top-down model will characterise the supply profile available to 2050 Smart City, under different national supply scenarios, where the Smart Grid is capable of managing residential DERs under different Smart Grid scenarios. The bottom-up model; populated by a newly available dataset of 25,000 half hourly residential demand profiles, will generate probability density functions (PDFs) that characterise household demand profiles in 2050. The Smart Grid interface between the bottom-up and top-down models will characterise (using PDFs) the supply-demand deficit areas that will need to be closed by demand reduction, efficiency measures, DSM and household behaviour change. These deficit areas will indicate the magnitude, shape and size of the supply-demand deficit. An interview based social science study will then be devised to ascertain households willingness and capacity to adapt to the predicated future demand profiles in order to establish potential issues in the successful implementation of this future system.
Smart Grid Video
The short video below shows the Model City Mannheim Projects conceptual development of a Smart Gird and captures most of the main subcomponents to the Smart Grid. Different projects construct various architectures and designs to Smart Grid development; the differences impact both what is technically and socially achievable. The Model City Mannheim Project is one of the most ambitious and radical shifts, from the current electricity system, put forward by any Smart Grid Project.
you will need adobe flash player to play this movie
Research Aim and Objectives
Aim: To develop a statistical computational model that characterises the required household demand profiles of 2050 under decarbonised supply, DER and Smart Grid scenarios that enables identification of potential supply-demand deficits within the typical 2050 Smart City. Then to identify households capacity and willingness to adapt and change to this future.
Objectives:
1. Develop a discrete number of national supply scenarios for 2050 based on the current literature. Quantify the characteristic half hourly supply profile of these scenarios that will be presented to a typical city in the UK for a typical year via decoupling intermittent from flexible supply generators and disaggregating supply profiles to the city level via bottom-up and top-down energy models.
2. Characterise a “typical” future Smart City within the UK in order to define the demand profile demographics of typical residential areas that will relate to Smart Grid implementation within cities. Methodologies to handle variables such as commercial and industrial loads, variations in weather patterns and household building types across city types will have to be developed. The EDRP dataset will enable these parameters to be defined.
3. Develop a discrete number of local DER, V2G and electric heating scenarios in terms of market penetration. For each technology a supply/demand profile will be characterised with dispatch to the Distribution Network or household carefully considered.
4. Carry out a state of the art review and characterise the dynamics of three discrete Smart Grid architectures; the control regimes that are possible within these architectures will influence the control of DERs and functionality of the Smart Grid.
5. Construct a statistical method of disaggregating the supply power at each level of the model; from national to city, city to Smart Grid aggregated household areas and finally down to household level. It is proposed that this will be based on a bottom-up energy model of EDRP demand data which is then used to pull out parameters from which the national supply profile can be disaggregated against.
6. Evolve the current EDRP demand data to 2050 through the bottom-up energy model in order to incorporate new technologies such as V2Gs and electric heating.
7. Run the model through Monte-Carlo analysis to statistically determine and characterise household and aggregated household areas demand profiles in 2050. This will enable a statistical evaluation of the deficit in demand and supply that DSM, efficiency measures and energy demand reduction via behaviour change will need to close.
8. Evaluate social and individual habits and attitudes towards energy demand and people’s ability to change and adapt to the household demand patterns of 2050 by creating a series of interviews. Compare the demand patterns of today with the demand patterns of 2050 required by the Smart Grid and decarbonised supply scenarios. Evaluate societies and individuals ability to change to this future by indicating the deficit between supply and demand that DSM and efficiency measures need to close to enable 2050 scenarios.
Diagrammatic Description of Model
The following diagrams illustrate the model construction and intended outputs.
More Information
A brief overview has been given here. Please feel free to contact me for further information. The project is at the stage of defining the exact methodology and modelling techniques to be used. An in-depth report is available on request.
Daniel Quiggin (MSci, MRes)
D.Quiggin@lboro.ac.uk
Personal Website: www.demandenergyequality.org
Project Team
Student(s)
Daniel Quiggin
Supervisor(s)
Richard Buswell
Paul Rowley
Kevin Lomas
Outputs
Award/prize
Funding From the Midlands Energy Group
£350 to Attend Smart City Conference in Amsterdam http://www.smartcityevent.com/programma Report to be written on return for MEGs
Conference proceeding
Publication Following Westminster Forum Conference – Next steps for smart grid development 12th July 2011
Data set
Energy Demand Research Project Dataset access
Collaboration with the Centre for Susatainable Energy for Sustainable Energy (CSE) is ongoing, they are the stakeholder in this research. Through their support access is being provided to the Energy Demand Research Project (EDRP) dataset – 60,000 household trial of smart meters – the largest dataset of half hourly demand side data. This will be used evaluate current demand profiles and indicate the gap between future demand profiles that will be required. Access is likely to be granted by the end of this year and will enable analysis of the largest set of smart metering data with interventions such as price incentives.
Event
A project founded by myself and now a Community Interest Company. We have run workshops for over 200 people, built a solar tree and received funding of around £20,000 in 18 months. We now have around 6,000 people visiting our website every month. There is too much to write about this so I would suggest visiting the website – www.demandenergyequality.org
Lisbon Energy and Society Conference
A presentation on my work given to the Energy and Society Conference in Lisbon
BECKS interdisciplinary conversation Workshop
Loughborough University “Building Energy & Comfort Knowledge Sharing” colloquium (or BECKS for short) is promoted jointly by the Sustainability Research School and Centre for Doctoral Training in Energy Demand Reduction. It aims to bring together researchers and academics from across campus who are working on issues relating to buildings, energy and comfort. I devised the workshop format and wrote the guidance notes for facilitators as well as running one of the group sessions on skills for interdisciplinary working.
Energy Security in a Multi-polar World Workshop
In January a I ran a one day workshop for the Energy Security in a Multi-Polar World Research Hub headed by professor Catherine Mitchell at Exeter University. This was in collaboration with an independent energy research consultant and PhD researcher from Exeter University on decentralised energy networks and their implications to demand reduction from a sociological perspective and energy security. This was based mainly on my dissertation and is likely to develop into a research proposal – this is on going. Please see http://www.exeter.ac.uk/energysecurity/resources.shtml
Journal paper (first author)
Publication of Masters Work
In conjunction with Dr Cornell of Bristol University, my supervisor Dr Buswell and I are in the process of publishing my Masters thesis and have gained skills in preparing documents for publication and collaboration between institutions. This works looks at how DERs and demand management can be used in order to reduce residential peak time demand, which is extremely relevant to this PhD research.
Other
CLUES collaboration
Invited to attend the CLUES project team meetings, attend first one on January 24th 2011
Meeting with Planning Departments
Meetings have taken place with Celia Beeson (part of the decentralised energy planning department) of Bristol Council Planning Department, and one meeting with Fund Willets of Bath and Somerset Planning Department. Both these meetings were to establish working relationships and potential stakeholders for end users my research. Out of them came several ways forward input into planning policy in order to facilitate energy networks of the future. Bristol City Council has one for the most radical planning policies in the country – Celia has indicated the possibility of adjusting this in the future to encourage different electricity network architectures.
Presentation
UCL MSc Environmental Design and Engineering Lecture
2 hour lecture on solar PV and a workshop on a practical demonstration given to the MSc in Environmental Design and Engineering at UCL
CDT Energy Network Presenation on Public Engagement
A presentation on how Demand Energy Equality (a project I setup) engages with the public.
Midlands Energy Group Presentation
In December 2010 a presentation was given to the Midland energy Group (MEGS) at Birmingham University on decentralised energy networks and their role in achieving a socio-technical transition to a low carbon society. This was part of their Christmas seminar series.
Report (progress/mini project/consultation reports)
MEGs Travel Busary Conference Report
A report on the 2 day Smart Cities Conference attended in May with the aid of the MEGs travel Busary and the DTC research grant