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Towards a systematic characterization of the potential of demand side management

With an increasing share of electric energy produced from non-dispatchable renewable sources both energy storage and demand side management might gain tremendously in importance. While there has been significant progress in general properties and technologies of energy storage, the systematic characterization of features particular to demand side management such as its intermittent, time-dependent potential seems to be lagging behind. As a consequence, the development of efficient and sustainable strategies for demand side management and its integration into large-scale energy system models are impeded. This work introduces a novel framework for a systematic time-resolved characterization of the potential for demand side management. It is based on the specification of individual devices both with respect to their scheduled demand and their potential of load shifting. On larger scales sector-specific profiles can straightforwardly be taken into account. The potential for demand side management is then specified in terms of size and capacity of an equivalent storage device. This intermediate layer of abstraction isolates the gross effects and opportunities of demand side management from questions concerning the operation of individual devices, which eases the integration of the results in existing schemes for the commitment of production units and system models. The novel framework is applicable for conceptual or predictive approaches and for real-time optimization and operation of energy systems involving demand side management.