Understanding demand-side flexibility characterisation and barriers to effective deployment: A Dutch case study

Demand response is a critical component of future energy systems, as it provides a significant contribution to the cost-optimal integration of renewable energy. However, a variety of barriers inhibit its deployment and utilisation. While the research on barriers to demand response is wide and varied, it is often unsystematic and incomplete, with studies focusing on parts of the demand response ecosystem such as specific sectors, technologies or stakeholders. To bridge this gap, this study builds upon existing literature to develop a consistent and comprehensive framework for systematically identifying, classifying and analysing barriers across the demand response ecosystem, with the aim of providing input for the design of policy incentives. We develop an integrated framework that is based on the underlying nature of the identified barriers. We identify four overarching categories: technical, economic, regulatory and behavioural, along with multiple sub-categories and elements. This framework is tested on the Dutch energy system. We find that the most significant technical barriers faced by the Dutch energy sector are process and operational constraints and network limitations; the main economic barriers are financial uncertainty and distorted market signals due to taxes and tariffs; the main regulatory barriers are policy ambiguity and information insufficiency; and the main behavioural barriers are lack of expertise and incompatible individual preferences.