Agent-Based Modelling of Demand-Side Flexibility Adoption in Reservoir Pumping

As wind and solar power displace conventional
generation in the electricity grid, there is an urgent need for
technologies that can deal with the variation in supply. Demand
response technology has been proposed as a solution to make the
demand-side flexible and able to effectively adjust to variations
in supply. However, consumers do not simply invest in demand
response technologies without insurance that their investment
will pay back. This paper applies agent-based simulation to
investigate consumer adoption behaviour of implicit demand
response solutions that allow consumers to adjust their
electricity use to the hourly prices in day-ahead spot markets.
The simulation uses the case study of a water supply system to
show that the adoption speed of implicit demand response
technology depends on both technical characteristics of the
system and the business model of the implicit demand response
solution provider. Hence, this paper contributes with insight on
how agent-based simulation can help technology providers to
design solutions which match the needs of system operators.