H2020 Auto-DAN Project: Enhance the Participation of the Community to Demand Response by Providing the State-of-the-Art Technological and Policy Solution

The growing demand for electricity in Europe has increased the need for a more flexible and sustainable power system. In recent years, Demand Response (DR) has emerged as a promising solution to meet this need, by providing an opportunity for residential and smaller commercial consumers to actively participate in the electricity market. This research paper investigates the potential for DR among the residential community and small commercial electricity consumers in Europe and identifies the technological barriers and drivers that impact consumer engagement with DR programs in Europe. The different DR opportunities are identified and validated at the six different demo sites in three different European countries: Ireland, Italy, and Spain. Four specific objectives of the DR applications are identified: 1). DR to avoid curtailment of renewable energy generators by the electricity grid operator 2). DR to optimize the energy efficiency of a central or district heating system 3). DR to limit the maximum power imported on a grid connection shared by several consumers 4). DR to maximize the level of self-consumption in a Renewable Energy Community (REC). The application of DR objectives will be implemented using a state-of-the-art community based Peer2Peer energy market platform and Digital Twin optimization engine together with the smart hardware infrastructure to enhance community engagement in DR. Finally, this paper suggests the improvements required in the Building energy performance standards and the Electricity Market design regulations to enhance the participation of the community in DR.