Deriving linear and nonlinear demand models responsive to cultural signals for assessing demand-side flexibility

• Joint DSF modeling of price and cultural signals (linear & nonlinear) • Four demand forms: linear, power, exponential, logarithmic. • Cultural elasticity can rival price elasticity in shaping DSF. • Sensitivity: higher prices/signals/elasticities → larger load shifts. • Case study: Romania 2024 peak; power most conservative, linear most aggressive. With the advancement of technology and the movement of power systems towards smartness and the need to reduce emissions, the power system will be subject to the widespread use of renewable energy sources(RES) and smart electrical equipment on the demand side, which will increase the uncertainties in the system on both the generation and demand sides. The use of demand-side flexibility(DSF) can deal with the uncertainty in the power system. By assessing demand-side flexibility, the regulator can examine the participation of end-users in demand response(DR) programs and demand response cultural programs. In this paper, the assessment of DSF is developed based on the simultaneous modeling of demand response programs and demand response cultural programs. The behavior of the derived models is investigated in response to changes in demand price elasticity, demand cultural elasticity, electricity price, reward/penalty, and variations in the number of cultural signals. In order to investigate the performance of the proposed models, numerical studies have been conducted on the real-world Romanian electricity grid. The results show that DSF is highly dependent on the degree of demand price elasticity and demand cultural elasticity. So that, by doubling the price elasticity and the real-time price at peak consumption, the reduction in peak consumption and energy in the linear model will be 22.16 % and 2.22 %, respectively. Also, by doubling the demand cultural elasticity, and the number of cultural signals at peak consumption, the reduction in peak consumption and energy in the linear model will be 9.82 % and 0.94 %, respectively.