Development opportunities for smart metering services in private customer interface
Aalto, Joni (2012)
Aalto, Joni
2012
Sähkötekniikan koulutusohjelma
Tieto- ja sähkötekniikan tiedekunta - Faculty of Computing and Electrical Engineering
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2012-02-08
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201203091052
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201203091052
Tiivistelmä
The European Union has set ambitious energy efficiency targets, which include for ex-ample commonly known “20-20-20”-targets. In order to achieve the targets the Euro-pean Union has set directives that have led the member countries of the European Union to set a legal framework for the installation of smart meters. Among other things, the smart meters provide opportunities to develop new services that enable more efficient energy usage for the consumers. Informative billing, based on the actual consumption and the internet services that enable the consumer to monitor the hourly consumption data are two examples of these services.
The aim of this thesis was to evaluate development opportunities for smart metering services in the private customer interface. Home Energy Management System, HEMS, is one example of smart metering service. During this work, a small-scale pilot study of HEMS was successfully carried through in a co-operation with a service provider. Pilot included five private households and provided customers with real-time consumption monitoring and enabled market price based steering of reserving electric heating. The customer feedback was collected with interviews and metering data was collected to calculate the potential savings. According to the customers, they did not change their energy consumption behavior significantly during the pilot. The steering of the electric heating enabled savings of 2.4-3.6 €/month when calculated with spot prices. To get a wider perspective about the customer needs for smart metering services a customer sur-vey was carried through. The survey included 187 customers who were using the current internet services provided by the DSO. There is a high interest towards real-time consumption monitoring and HEMS, but the willingness to invest is limited.
The HEMS concept was evaluated based on the feedback from the customer pilot and from the survey. The results can be used when developing future smart metering services by designing the services according to the concrete needs. HEMS system that would enable to control a large number of HEMS-units collectively could enable bene-fits also for the market actors. Therefore the potential benefits were evaluated also from the supplier and the DSO perspective. The evaluated benefits were small related to the required HEMS-units that would be needed to achieve them. With the piloted cost level of HEMS, the incentive for suppliers or DSOs to offer energy efficiency service like HEMS for the private customers is reduced if there is no possibility to have additional benefits around the service or it is not required by the legislation. This would mean that HEMS is mainly a business opportunity for service providers.
The pilot could be further utilized by providing the pilot customers with dynamic pricing rates. Additionally it could be used to demonstrate direct load steering, and to develop the control methods for a large number of HEMS. /Kir12
The aim of this thesis was to evaluate development opportunities for smart metering services in the private customer interface. Home Energy Management System, HEMS, is one example of smart metering service. During this work, a small-scale pilot study of HEMS was successfully carried through in a co-operation with a service provider. Pilot included five private households and provided customers with real-time consumption monitoring and enabled market price based steering of reserving electric heating. The customer feedback was collected with interviews and metering data was collected to calculate the potential savings. According to the customers, they did not change their energy consumption behavior significantly during the pilot. The steering of the electric heating enabled savings of 2.4-3.6 €/month when calculated with spot prices. To get a wider perspective about the customer needs for smart metering services a customer sur-vey was carried through. The survey included 187 customers who were using the current internet services provided by the DSO. There is a high interest towards real-time consumption monitoring and HEMS, but the willingness to invest is limited.
The HEMS concept was evaluated based on the feedback from the customer pilot and from the survey. The results can be used when developing future smart metering services by designing the services according to the concrete needs. HEMS system that would enable to control a large number of HEMS-units collectively could enable bene-fits also for the market actors. Therefore the potential benefits were evaluated also from the supplier and the DSO perspective. The evaluated benefits were small related to the required HEMS-units that would be needed to achieve them. With the piloted cost level of HEMS, the incentive for suppliers or DSOs to offer energy efficiency service like HEMS for the private customers is reduced if there is no possibility to have additional benefits around the service or it is not required by the legislation. This would mean that HEMS is mainly a business opportunity for service providers.
The pilot could be further utilized by providing the pilot customers with dynamic pricing rates. Additionally it could be used to demonstrate direct load steering, and to develop the control methods for a large number of HEMS. /Kir12