Dynamic modelling of consumers’ inconvenience associated with demand flexibility potentials

Abstract Demand flexibility, involving the potential to reduce or temporally defer electricity demand, is regarded as a key enabler for transitioning to a secure, cost-efficient and low-carbon energy future. However, previous work has not comprehensively modelled the inconvenience experienced by end-consumers due to demand modifications, since it has focused on static modelling approaches. This paper presents a novel model of inconvenience cost that simultaneously accounts for differentiated preferences of consumer groups, time and duration of interruptions, differentiated valuation of different units of power and temporal redistribution of shiftable loads. This model is dynamic and future-agnostic, implying that it captures the time-coupling characteristics of consumers’ flexibility and the temporal evolution of interruptions, without resorting to the unrealistic assumption that time and duration of interruptions are foreknown. The model is quantitatively informed by publicly available surveys combined with realistic assumptions and suitable sensitivity analyses regarding aspects excluded from existing surveys. In the examined case studies, the developed model is applied to manage an aggregator’s portfolio in a scenario involving emergence of an adequacy issue in the Belgian system. The results illustrate how considering each of the above factors affects demand management decisions and the inconvenience cost, revealing the value of the developed model.