MI-EUDP Workshop: Stock-taking on how demand response is progressing in the EU, with particular focus on Citizen Energy Communities

This workshop is aligned with the Mission Innovation program activity on demand response and is supported by the Danish research program EUDP (Energy Development and Demonstration Program).

The Mission Innovation demand response activity recognizes demand response or flexibility in demand to be of key importance in order to ensure balancing in an energy market with increasing amounts of intermittent renewable energy resources and to enable intelligent reinforcement of grid infrastructure where capacity utilization is maximized.

We hosted a first workshop of this kind in Copenhagen, Denmark in June 2019. Our second workshop – which is virtual due to COVID-19 - wish to take stock on how demand response regulatory framework and commercial activities are progressing, especially looking at the past two years in the EU and activities within Citizen and Local Energy Communities (CEC & LEC).

The potential of CECs ability to support the local balancing of energy and interact with the grid is an issue with increasing focus in the EU following the EU Clean Energy Package’s framework conditions for CECs. Hence, we put particular focus on CEC and LEC at this workshop.

Quoting Fatih Birol, WEO 2018, IEA: Flexibility is the corner stone of the future energy system. Activating flexibility and balancing the energy system will enable the energy system to drive increasing amounts of intermittent RE-resources from wind and solar into our energy system. However, identifying how we encourage asset holders to engage, and what assets will be more important in driving this development, needs further exploration.

Around the time of the first workshop in June 2018, the EU Clean Energy Package had been adopted. Since then it has been in an implementation phase in all EU member states. This phase is finalized by the end of 2020. At the same time the EU Green Deal as well as enhanced EU-ambition on reducing greenhouse gasses by 2030 has been decided. This will drive even more RE into our energy system through direct consumption in heating, transportation and industrial processes as well as into e-fuels, increasing the need for demand response.

At the workshop we take stock on the EU member state implementation and look into new commercial cases that engage the active customer, including the ability for Citizen and Local Energy Communities to engage consumers.

The program and registration can be found in the informations box to the right.