More and more people have an electric car on their doorstep, a heat pump in their house or solar panels on their roof. You can switch many of these devices on and off remotely. This is useful if you have a dynamic contract where your electricity price changes during the day. But it can also be used against overloading the power grid. This has been investigated at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).
Because the power grid is heavily overloaded. More and more businesses are offline and solar panels are turned off when the grid is busy. Reinforcing the power grid would provide a solution, but it is a huge task that will take years.
That’s why TU/e PhD students have been investigating how people can be encouraged to spread their electricity usage throughout the day, so that we are less affected by an overloaded power grid. The research was conducted by Bart van der Hulst (28) and Gijs Verhoeven (27). They are currently working on their doctoral research (PhD) at TU/e. By simulating the electricity grid, they investigated the effects of various measures that grid operators are already using or are on the table to ease the grid.
Calculate rates
For example, they looked at three ways to calculate the prices of purchasing or providing electricity (e.g. from solar panels):
- Based on bandwidth. You pay a fixed amount up to a certain usage point, after which you pay more.
- On a time basis. During so-called “peak hours,” when the grid is being used the most, you pay more. During off-peak hours, when less electricity is being transmitted through the grid, you pay less.
- Based on your peak. Your price is calculated based on the amount and timing of your peak consumption. So if your peak falls at a lower level, you’ll be better off.
The researchers also looked at types of contracts. “Certain types of contracts are already being used for businesses and industry,” Bart says. “We translated those models into contracts for households.”
This looks like this: Grid operators and energy suppliers, for example, make agreements on shifting energy use. If the grid operator expects the power grid to be very full the next day, it can demand that less or more energy be used. For example, electric cars are charged at a different time.
There are no disadvantages to families.
According to Bart and Gages, there are no real drawbacks to households. “Whether your electric car is charged at midnight or only at 4 a.m. doesn’t really matter, as long as you can get to work in the morning,” Bart explains.
“People don’t really end up cold because, for example, their heat pump turns off in the middle of winter,” Gijs adds. “But if the thermostat is temporarily set lower, and people don’t notice, it can work fine. As long as it doesn’t bother people.”
High readiness
As part of the same GO-e project, research agency TNO investigated how willing people are to have such an energy contract. For example, in one application, participants were asked during the day whether they would mind if their temperature was lowered by one degree at that time. “80 percent of them were willing to adjust their energy consumption to solve the grid congestion problem. For half of them, saving money was the main reason,” says Bart.
This offers hope, as do the research findings that distributing energy use throughout the day works. While we shouldn’t see it as a final solution, it still largely lies in strengthening the electricity grid. Gijs: “In the short term, combining these measures is effective. The problems with the electricity grid are huge and every little bit helps in the moment. Ultimately, it could still be a way to continue using the grid more efficiently.”
The peaks
Even the two are skeptical that these measures could work very well in the future. “If you don’t pay attention, it can go the other way,” says Bart. According to him, the new devices cause energy surges in the power grid, for example if everyone comes home at the same time with an electric car and wants to charge it, if the sun is shining and all the solar panels provide energy or if all the heat pumps start working when it’s cold.
“On the one hand, you can do something with this by spreading supply and demand, as we’ve looked at. But if everyone soon has smart devices that can decide for themselves when they’re using or storing energy, there’s a good chance that all of those users will be using energy at the same cheap time. Then you’re changing the problem, which is risky in the long run.”
The researchers’ advice to network operators is that they should continue to think about ways to adapt distribution measures so that they remain effective in the future.
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