Demand-Side Flexibility in Low-Carbon Grids

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Mitigating the consequences of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving our energy security present great challenges. This is especially the case for the electricity industry as classic fully-controllable coal and gas-fired power plants are bound to be replaced partly by clean wind and solar generation, which unfortunately lack the means to regulate their own power output. Most classic power stations are generally flexible because they can change their power output at will to meet the changing demand for electricity and to counter unpredicted events like equipment failures on the grid. Industrialized and increasingly digital economies are clearly not willing to sacrifice their reliable electricity supply in spite of a shift in the composition of the electricity generation mix. This motivates the search for potentially new solutions to provide the needed flexibility to balance electricity generation and consumption. Electricity consumers and many of their appliances are inherently flexible as, for example, one can delay doing the laundry. The premise of this work is that consumers, on aggregate, can provide flexibility just like thermal power plants. This flexibility is poorly understood, modelled or quantified, however. The research program we are proposing is seeking to investigate that flexibility and formally study its use in power systems. In the long run, we aim to help set up a rigorous theory of demand flexibility and its use with its models, methodologies and, most importantly, boundaries of its applicability. The specific focus of this research is on developing methods to estimate and to characterize the flexibility potential of aggregated flexible consumers, showing how and under what conditions consumers' actions can aggregate to provide useful services in support of the grid and its users and in a context of low-carbon generation. Consumers in Canada are potentially some of the most flexible in the world because of the importance of inherently flexible electric heating. Most Canadians own a hidden resource which deserves to be better understood and assessed, especially since it may greatly contribute to catalyze the decarbonization of the electricity sector while improving its reliability and economics.