Quantifying flexibility from a system perspective using limited information: An index to rank electricity users’ potential value

As an increasing number of public actors both in the EU and in Sweden – from the highest political level to local operational levels – request greater flexibility and understanding of electrical power systems, additional methods and tools are necessary to identify potentially valuable sources of flexibility. In this study, we developed the Flexibility Value Index (FVI) to quantify and rank the system perspective-value of different electricity users’ potential flexibility. Previous studies have mainly concentrated on either broad system levels, assessing total flexibility across an entire sector, country, or technology, or on a very detailed level, analyzing individual buildings based on specific appliance data on a case-by-case basis. However, there is a lack of studies between these two sides that, with limited information, aim to identify users whose consumption behavior or patterns would be valuable to change. This paper presents a quantification method based on five indicators demonstrated by evaluating electricity users from seven categories in Uppsala Municipality, Sweden. The results showed that the largest average FVIs were typically found in the later afternoon and early evenings during weekdays, coinciding with higher grid loads, but also in the mornings and weekends for individual users. Grid owners, public entities, or private businesses can use the developed index in strategic decision-making to identify users who might provide the most valuable flexibility for the power system for further investigations. • A lightweight system-perspective index for flexibility evaluation is demonstrated. • A suite of system-based and individual key performance indicators are presented. • A data-driven method is employed using electricity users’ energy meter data. • Real-world data from seven different types of users are implemented. • The results showed differences over the year, within the day, and between users.