Comparing demand side management approaches

Due to increasing energy prices and the greenhouse effect, a more efficient energy supply is desirable, preferably based on renewable sources. To cope with the decrease of flexibility due to the introduction of renewables in production side of the supply chain, a more flexible consumer side is required. In literature, a lot of management methodologies are proposed to exploit the flexibility of consuming devices. Due to the large number of devices, these methodologies are often based on cost functions. Comparing the results of different methodologies is hard since differences in results can be caused by the methodologies itself or by less good defined cost functions. In this paper an auction based realtime control is compared with an ILP based realtime control using identical cost functions. Furthermore, the influence of planning on these strategies is studied. The simulation results show that planning leads to better and more predictable results. Furthermore, planning is best combined with an auction. However, the auction should slightly be altered to decrease communication and to be able to cope with (local) grid constraints.