Operational Impacts of Responsive Electricity Loads: A Modeling Framework Including Policy Implications for Cyprus

Abstract

In order to meet EU mandates, the island nation of Cyprus must raise penetration of renewable energy from roughly 5% in 2013 to 16% in 2020. This means Cyprus will need economical ways of balancing intermittency, a special challenge for small island power systems which have less inertia, narrower reserve margins, and high fuel costs for thermal generators. This thesis explores the potential of demand response programs to help integrate renewables in Cyprus from an hourly unit commitment perspective. A stochastic optimization model of the nation's power grid is presented, including thermal generators, wind, solar photovoltaic, and concentrated solar power with thermal storage. Demand response programs are modeled as a variety of shiftable or curtailable loads, with configurable parameters such as: energy capacity, maximum operation time of a load, maximum time a load can be shifted, lead time required to shift a load, and minimum interval between calls to shift a given consumer's load. The model includes loads from the residential, commercial and desalination sectors. The model is run on scenarios with and without a planned transition from fuel oil to natural gas generation, with either a gradual or a fast economic growth between 2013 and 2020. In all scenarios, the model finds that demand response can help Cyprus reduce electricity costs, harvest more useable energy from wind and concentrating solar power, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.