A balancing act
How small-scale devices work together to stabilise the power grid - by Jan Brändle
Have you ever wondered how something as small as your home heat pump or rooftop solar panels could play a role in stabilising the power grid across an entire continent? While it may seem astonishing at first, these small-scale devices scattered across your local distribution grid, when combined, have the remarkable potential to do exactly that. Their ability to dynamically adjust power generation or consumption, i.e., their flexibility, can make a significant contribution to maintaining the ever-needed power balance in the power grid.
To demonstrate the potential of this so-called aggregated flexibility, researchers from the NCCR Automation have partnered with the Walenstadt utility. Their distribution network serves as a pilot.
It features a diverse mix of controllable generation and consumption units - such as photovoltaic generation, controllable boilers and heat pumps - and large battery storage systems. Using grid modelling and shared data, it is possible to quantify the flexibility or grid balancing potential of all these devices.
Incorporating probabilistic scenarios, such as weather scenarios, helps to gain insights into this potential under uncertainty.
Ultimately, this can be extended beyond the technical realm: exploring the economic potential of small-scale flexibility may even allow for the participation in power markets.
Text by Jan Brändle; picture by WEW Walenstadt
How small-scale devices work together to stabilise the power grid - by Jan Brändle