A clearinghouse concept for distribution-level flexibility services

Abstract

Flexibility resources on the demand side are anticipated to become a valuable asset for balancing renewable energy fluctuation as well as for reducing investment needs in distribution grids. To harvest this flexibility for distribution grids, flexibility services need to be defined that can be integrated with distribution grid operation and that provide a benefit that can be traded off against other grid investments. Two key challenges are here that the identification of useful services is still ongoing and that the transaction cost for the individually small contributions from the demand side could be prohibitive. This paper introduces a flexibility clearinghouse (FLECH) concept and isolates FLECH key functionality: to facilitate flexibility services in distribution grids by streamlining the relevant business interactions while keeping technical specifications open.