The Clean Energy Package aims to transit towards cleaner energy in the European Union and requires market reforms towards small-scale flexibility provision and the creation of local flexibility markets. However, the progress in many Member States is slow. While several Member States have initiated a reform of their existing energy market structures, only few have started the creation of local flexibility markets. This paper provides an overview of emerging flexibility markets in the EU. This paper also provides an analysis of important elements of local flexibility markets based on literature review and assessments made in the Horizon 2020 project X-FLEX. Seven key characteristics of local flexibility markets have been retained from this literature review. Small-scale flexibility is still a relatively new concept, and a lot of barriers prevent it to enter the markets. Two main types of gaps were identified: (i) marketrelated gaps, such as aggregation rules that are not open enough, and (ii) operational gaps, such as the need for the large-scale smart metering infrastructure rollout and a large amount of data streams. The operation of local flexibility markets should depend on the network conditions they are applied to, as the conditions are different from one network to another. For this reason, the need for local flexibility markets has to be assessed depending on the problems the network is currently facing or will be facing in the future due to foreseen increased amount of distributed generation sources and electrified demand. A detailed analysis in terms of flexibility provision for the four demonstration sites in three European Member States participating in the X-FLEX project is presented in this paper, along with recommendations and activities for local flexibility market development performed in these demonstration sites.
Electric heating devices, in particular heat pumps, are a popular way of providing heat for space heating and domestic hot water. From the perspective of electricity network, heat pumps can be considered as a relatively large load, and the increasing number of heat pumps can put a strain on the existing infrastructure. However, heat pumps can also be considered as flexible loads that could improve the flexibility of the electricity network. Heat pumps alone can hardly provide any demand flexibility without affecting the comfort of occupants, but greater flexibility can be achieved by combining them with thermal energy storages (TES). In this paper, the flexibility potential provided by heat pumps has been assessed for the case of low voltage network of Chrysa Xanthi in Greece. Xanthi is one of the pilot sites in the Horizon 2020 project X-FLEX, aiming to maximize the integration of renewable energy sources (RES) and flexibility systems into the existing European network. For the purpose of this study, heat pumps together with photovoltaic (PV) generation were placed in a model of the existing network and cases where a large imbalance between generation and consumption occurs were studied. Additionally, TES was included in the heat pump demand model and the potential for increasing grid flexibility and improving the integration of RES was analysed.
This paper presents a novel approach for flexibility trading in the distribution network. It combines capacity trading for limited network capacities and flexibility trading for ancillary services to Distribution System Operators. Capacity trading aims at avoiding network congestion and can be seen as a marketbased substitute for dynamic tariffs. The operation and management of the market is carried out through a tool called MARKETFLEX, which combines a market platform with new market mechanisms that enable the optimal utilization of flexibility at the best price. The tool provides a single point of access to the market at local and wholesale level. Namely, local flexibility should be available to the Transmission System Operator as it can be beneficial for the whole power system. The presented market platform uses a decentralized architecture based on blockchain technology.
Distribution System Operators (DSOs) are more and more in need of flexibility services due to variable distributed generation, particularly photovoltaics (PV), and increased electricity demand coming from electric vehicles and heat pumps connected to the low voltage (LV) network. This growth of the electricity demand as well as unforeseen bidirectional power flow pose a great risk of congestion in the LV network. However, the distributed generation and storage devices can also serve as a flexibility source. Market-based solutions like local flexibility markets (LFMs) are encouraged by the European Commission to help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and help DSOs minimize or defer their investments in network reinforcement. In the project X-FLEX, a hybrid market platform is being developed to allow aggregators provision of flexibility services to DSOs in the event of anticipated or detected congestion. An important question for DSOs and flexibility providers is the value of these flexibility services and how to justify the investment in this solution rather than the traditional methods of grid reinforcements. This paper presents a method for assessing the value of flexibility services to the DSO from two perspectives, technical and economical. This paper also describes the simulation models used to perform the value analysis. This method was elaborated within the context of the X-FLEX project, thus taking into account the regulatory framework of two pilot countries: Greece and Slovenia.
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