Modeling the long-term impact of demand response in energy planning: The Portuguese electric system case study

With the urge to decrease carbon emissions, electricity systems need to evolve to promote the integration of renewable resources and end-use energy efficiency. Demand Response (DR) can be used as a strategy, one among many, to improve the balance between demand and supply of electricity, especially in systems that rely heavily on variable energy renewable resources. Thus, it is important to understand up to what extent a countrywide system would cope with DR implementation. In this work, the impact of demand response in the long-term is assessed, using a model of the Portuguese electricity system in the modeling tool OSeMOSYS. The theoretical potential of DR is computed to understand better the impact on the overall system planning, by analyzing three scenarios a business as usual scenario, a carbon-free system scenario in 2050, and a scenario without heavy carbon emission restrictions. DR impact in all three scenarios results in a decrease in the overall costs, on the capacity installed and in an increase in the percentage of renewable capacity. Further, an economic analysis showed that DR would take 15 years, on average, to influence the average electricity cost and that the reduction in total costs is mainly due to the avoided capacity investments. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.