Romande Energie Demonstrator – Socio-economic and technical planning of multi-energy systems

Distributed generation of electricity and residential consumption have a large, but so far unexploited, potential for flexibility. New business model for local flexibility are currently explored by utility companies as well as start-ups. Up to date, little is known on the consumer acceptance of local flexibility provision. Within this SCCER joint activity project, the consumer participation for business models for local flexibility is investigated, by adapting the simulation platform TREES specifically to this case study. Driver and barriers for the diffusion of local flexibility business models are included to develop a platform for business strategy testing. The long-term value creation potential with local flexibility for the concrete application setting of the project partner Romande Energie is analyzed.

This research project will reveal results supporting the decision-making processes of Romande Energie and provides insights on the general potential of local flexibility business models, by

• estimating the residual load over time in the supply areas considering the diffusion of self-consumption,
• assessing the flexibility potential based on home batteries,
• simulating the number of customers adopting the investigated flexibility business models,
• estimating the cash-flow / profit for Romande Energie of flexibility business models (for example a battery swarm business model),
• evaluating and comparing different flexibility business models for the implementation and
• analyzing the uncertainty of business strategies.