Regional Flexibility Markets—Solutions to the European Energy Distribution Grid—A Systematic Review and Research Agenda

Abstract

The German government is aiming to increase the share of renewable energies in the electricity supply to 80% in 2050. To date, however, neither the technical requirements nor the market requirements to implement this aim are provided: Germany is struggling to establish the technical requirements and the market requirements to meet this goal. As an important incentive mechanism, the German government has used and continues to use support measures, such as guaranteed feed-in tariffs, and continuously adapts these to market developments and requirements of the European Union. The purpose of the study is to outline a concept for the implementation of regional flexibility markets in Europe based on a thorough review of technical solutions. The method of a comprehensive review of research in regional flexibility markets of electricity, distribution, and pricing from the study is applied to summarize and discuss the opportunities, risks, and future potentials of grid distribution technology. Based on the insights, a new market-based supply and distribution scheme for electricity, which is aimed to benefit of a fully regenerative, decentral and fairly priced electricity markets on the European level is presented. The study suggests a blockchain based pricing mechanism which shall allow equal market access for consumer, providers, and grid operators and rewards regenerative production and short-distance transmission.

Electricity Markets during the Liberalization: The Case of a European Union Country

“…The formation of the integrated single European energy market is one of the objectives of energy and electricity policies [77][78][79].…”

Flexibility Estimation of Residential Heat Pumps under Heat Demand Uncertainty

“…The same is true for negative flexibility: if the remaining available regeneration time is insufficient to consume the additional thermal energy that is generated, the SOC of the TES will exceed the required amount by too much. As a consequence, the duration of flexibility with respect to the available regeneration time is restricted by Equations ( 19) and (20), in the timestep number.…”

“…For the provision of flexibility, the aforementioned research has mainly focused on the centralized coordination of controllable household devices. Meanwhile, the German government has used various support measures to continuously adapt flexibility provision to market developments [20]. A flexibility market is a concept for the utilization of flexibility, their efficient use and the assurance of a coordinated call-off [21,22].…”

“…Instead of passive participation, energy consumers have higher flexibility to enable a market supply that meets market conditions. In addition, the flexibility market allows for a "cellular" approach, where the flexibility requirements are determined on the scale of individual units, rather than a top-down approach based on an aggregate calculation of expected demand and supply [20]. Moreover, local flexibility markets enable an economically efficient solution to trade flexibility among distribution system operators and other participants (e.g., aggregators).…”

Blockchain technology in the renewable energy sector: A co-word analysis of academic discourse

“…Through these mechanisms, consumers are incentivized to reduce or shift their energy usage during peak periods, which helps in balancing the grid and enhancing its efficiency. The technology also plays a crucial role in smart metering and grid management [ [88] , [89] , [90] , [91] ]. By providing a secure way to record and verify energy consumption data from smart meters, blockchain enhances transparency and trust in energy billing [ [92] , [93] , [94] ].…”