Assessing the Sustainability and Power System Impacts of Bottom-Up Smart Prosumers Aggregation: The DEMAND Project

The aggregation of flexible resources contributes to sustainability because it impacts on CO2 emissions, enables renewable energy integration, improves network efficiency and makes the electric power system more resilient. The research project DEMAND has tested the potential of bottom-up aggregation of smart prosumers with no intermediation by a third-party balancing service provider. The present work analyzes the electrical and environmental effects of this new type of aggregation in different scenarios, taking into account both simulated data and data obtained from four pilot sites where the DEMAND system has been implemented. The effectiveness of the proposed aggregation method is evaluated through the calculation of some KPIs: power peaks, grid losses, voltage drops and CO2 emissions.