Finding Demand Response from Smart Meter Data

Demand response (DR) is widely seen as an element bringing needed flexibility to the sustainable power system of the future. In Finland, all electricity consumers, including small ones, have smart meters enabling DR based on the electricity contracts with dynamic hourly energy prices. With these contracts, electricity has its own price every hour based on the prices of the day-ahead market of the Nordic power exchange. Consumers can shift part of the consumption to low-price hours leading to lower electricity costs. A very interesting question is that does the volatile price influence on the real consumers’ consumption patterns today. In this paper, we seek answer to this question by first discussing the proper methodology for observing DR from a retailer’s data and secondly by making a case study in which smart meter data of real customers having dynamic electricity contracts is used. The results of the case study show that tiny indications of possible DR can be found, but more research is needed.