Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung gGmbH (IÖW)
The Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung (IÖW) is a leading scientific institute in the field of practice-oriented sustainability research. 45 employees develop strategies and approaches for a sustainable economy that ensures a good life and respects nature. The institute works on a non-profit basis and without public funding.
Short description of the project contribution
Prosumer flexibility potentials
In the Uckermark regional power plant and beyond, prosumers (small-scale consumer and producers) can provide local flexibility with their generation and consumption of electricity and possibly use the electricity depending on its availability. Unlike in a power plant, the use of electricity in a private household is determined in the short term by consumer behaviour. For example, the washing machine cannot be interrupted in the middle of the washing process on the one hand and can only start when it is loaded on the other hand. This means that these potentials vary considerably in time and can only be exploited under certain restrictions.
But not only private households, also business enterprises have the possibility to become prosumers and to make a system contribution with their flexibility. IÖW uses simulations with a prosumer model to assess the potential of private households and businesses to flexibly generate and consume electricity and how the restrictions can be dealt with. The specific configuration of the prosumer households (e.g. different operating modes or external control mechanisms for the energy consumption in the household) allows a simulation of how prosumer households can be developed in the study region and how effects on the regional power plant and the energy system can be reliably estimated. Through these specific operating modes and/or external control impulses, prosumer households can provide various forms of flexibility to the energy system. Such effects can be reproduced with the IÖW prosumer model for households and the effect in the aggregation can be proven. The model logic is also applied to business operations that can play a role for the overall system or for the regional power plant as prosumers in the study region. Specific measurement data or typical consumption behaviour of relevant businesses are used to this end.
The results will be integrated in the simulation of the Reiner Lemoine Institute for the Uckermark regional power plant to determine the optimal operating schedule. Futhermore, the simulation results can give a decisive answer as to how important the prosumer flexibility potentials are and under which conditions they can be exploited.