Competing objectives in domestic demand side management: learning from the Northern Isles New Energy Solutions projects

Implementing the smart grid requires coordinating competing objectives and constraints from multiple engineering domains. This paper explores the challenges involved in scheduling flexible demand according to objectives in two: the power system and household heat domains. The context is the Northern Isles New Energy Solutions project on the Shetland Islands, UK, where Active Network Management is being used to schedule flexible electric storage and immersion heaters. The study highlights that simplifications and assumptions in both domains must be coordinated to understand the overall effectiveness of a scheme. In the case study, customer facing objectives such as home comfort levels are prioritised over the power system objective of reducing fossil fuel generation. Power system operation aggregates houses into a small number of groups to allow practical scheduling. Modelling results show that this prioritisation and aggregation achieves a reduction in fossil fuel generation of 0.71GWh; 65% of that achieved if customer facing objectives are not prioritised.