Earning money while making power grid more stable—energy consumers can have key role in supporting grid flexibility

By providing flexibility services to renewable energy systems, consumers can both help in balancing power grids and receive financial benefits. Hosna Khajeh’s doctoral dissertation from the University of Vaasa, Finland, introduces new methods that enable the efficient utilization of energy users’ flexibility resources in distribution and transmission networks.

As the use of weather-dependent renewable energy sources increases, power systems need to become more flexible to guarantee energy supply at all times. One of the necessary steps for the future is making it possible for consumers to support both national and local power grids with their existing flexibility resources—such as home batteries, air conditioners, and renewable energy setups.

In her doctoral dissertation in electrical engineering, Hosna Khajeh shows how individual energy users, local energy communities, and industrial hydrogen systems can become flexibility service providers for both transmission and distribution system operators.

“While flexibility services for transmission system operators are well-developed, less attention has been given to those for distribution system operators,” points out Khajeh, who will defend her dissertation on 3 December at the University of Vaasa.

Khajeh states that consumers providing flexibility services not only benefits the system operators, but also the energy users themselves, since they would profit financially from harnessing their own resources.

Practical methods for providing flexibility services

In her dissertation, Khajeh introduces different mathematical methods that enable consumers to improve grid stability. “The presented methods help flexibility providers in effectively scheduling their resources, controlling their energy use based on the needs of system operators, and boosting their profits.”

Distribution system operators, such as Vaasan Sähköverkko in Finland, can also utilize the findings to strengthen their networks, create new services, and make the electrical network more flexible.

Implementation requires global improvements from automation to planning

Khajeh points out that to deploy these new methods for providing flexibility services from household customers, improvements and investments are required both in Finland and globally. “We need flexibility utilization enabling advanced automation and telecommunication solutions, common transmission and distribution network planning and operating principles as well as market platforms and tariff solutions.”

In her research, Khajeh used price and frequency data from Finnish national electricity transmission grid operator Fingrid’s open data platform, along with modified energy consumption data from Finnish households provided by Vaasan Sähkö, a Finnish electricity company.