The Simulator

Introduction

The project addresses the practical issues regarding the with the policy design of Dynamic Time-of-Use (dToU). This method incentivizes the users to increase or decrease their energy consumption with financial rewards through variable tariffs. It is also known as demand response (DR). The main reason to implement DR is to actively stabilize the system with user participation. On the other hand, users can maximize their energy cost savings by utilizing the incentives provided by the energy retailer.

For the research purpose, Low Carbon London project was conducted in United Kingdom (UK) from the beginning of 2011 to the end of 2014. The project was funded by energy consumers via Ofgen's Low Carbon Network Fund. The programme was UK's first dynamic-electricity-pricing trial for residential sector. The trial was designed to study the impact of large scale dynamic load shifting on the system. In this trial 5,567 households participated. Out of those, 1,122 households recieved the experimental dToU tariff that was in effect for the duration of 2013.

Limitation of Data-driven approach with LCL dataset

The energy consumption data collected in the LCL project ranged for four years. The dToU experiments were only carried out for one year with around 20% of the total participants. This imposes the limitations on the quality of information that the dataset can provide. The few reasons are listed below.

1. User adaptation latency
2. Seasonality of timeseries