A DSM test case applied on an end-to-end system, from consumer to energy provider

Current decarbonisation goals have, in recent years, led to a tremendous increase in electricity production generated from intermittent Renewable Energy Sources. Despite their contribution to reducing society’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions they have been responsible for numerous challenges that the current electricity grid has to cope with. Flexibility has become a key mechanism to help in mitigating them. Real-time informed consumers can offer the needed flexibility through modifying their behaviour or by engaging with Demand Side Management (DSM) programs. The latter requires the intervention of several actors and levels of communication management which makes this task difficult from an implementation perspective. With this aim we built and tested a small scale system in our lab which represents a real end-to-end system from the consumer to the energy provider. We programmed the system according to the Object Identification System (OBIS) specification to obtain consumers’ consumption through smart meters with high frequency (one minute). This allows remote control of their appliances in order to reduce the total neighbourhood consumption during critical time periods of the day (peak time). These results and the realisation of a realistic end-to-end system open the way to more complex tests and particularly to the possibility of benchmarking them with other lab tests.