PowerWeb Lecture: “Unlocking the DER ‘coordination dividend’: Constructing stakeholder consensus on the common good outcomes of DER asset coordination.”
13 June 2023 12:45 till 13:30 - Location: Faculty of EWI, Mekelweg 4 (Chip Hall) | Add to my calendar
Practical information
By: David Shipworth, Professor of Energy and the Built Environment at the UCL Energy Institute
Date: Tuesday 13 June 2023
Time: 12:45-13:30 (free lunch from 12:15)
Location: Faculty of EWI, Mekelweg 4 (Chip Hall)
Moderator: Dr Francesco Lombardi
Register here: registration form.
Abstract
There is good evidence of a ‘coordination dividend’ in power systems with high levels of distributed energy resources which depends on the coordination of those resources towards agreed common-good objectives. This lecture reviews mechanisms for coordination of both privately held and community owned DER assets, from direct power-systems control - through legal contracts and market mechanisms - to voluntary agreements, and the comparative risks and benefits of using each to realise this ‘coordination dividend’. It then focuses on the challenge of multiple and often conflicting individual and collective socially good outcomes from such asset coordination, taking a complex systems perspective to consider how conflicting constraints arising from multiple objectives (e.g. individual vs. community financial benefits; carbon mitigation; power system support) can lead to system ‘frustration’ and sub-optimal outcomes. From this perspective, resolving such conflicting constraints can lead to better system level outcomes. One mechanism to do this is through extensions of the companion modelling approach (Étienne 2014) developed in the field of environmental resource management. Companion modelling uses empirical social research to create multiple system representations through which different stakeholder groups provide real uses’ responses to inform agent based models of distributed resource management. These offer an approach to construction of empirically grounded computer simulations of DER owners’ responses under different market and regulatory environments. Additionally, through use of behavioural science methods embedded in stakeholder consultation and co-design processes, they constitute a consensus forming mechanism through which stakeholders can converge on common good objectives for DER asset-rich power systems to deliver. This lecture draws on discrete areas of research strength across TU Delft and UCL into a possible programme of research collaboration on the implementation of high DER asset decarbonised electrical power systems.
Short bio of the presenter:
David Shipworth is Professor of Energy and the Built Environment at the UCL Energy Institute and Chair of the User-Centred Energy SystemsTechnology Collaboration Programme by the International Energy Agency. His research focuses on ways to provide demand flexibility within the energy system and roles of consumers, regulators, and buildings in delivering these. He has a particular interest in mechanisms of distributed energy resource asset coordination including local energy trading, time of use tariffs, and home energy management systems. He speaks and consults widely in the UK and internationally on local energy trading - particularly on the design, conduct and evaluation of field trials for testing the consumer acceptability and response to different flexibility product offerings.
