Household electricity demand, the intrinsic flexibility index and UK wholesale electricity market prices

Jacopo Torriti

There are times of the day when electricity prices are higher and flexing demand to lower levels would reduce prices and the carbon intensity of the grid. Energy demand follows different patterns, which are driven by the things we do in and out of the home. Flexing demand cannot just happen at any time of the day. However, it might be possible to measure which levels of flexibility are associated with different periods of the day based on (i) how synchronised activities are within the household and with the rest of the population; (ii) the number of activities requiring electricity which are shared with others; and (iii) how fragmented days are in terms of number and duration of electricity-related activities. I call this ‘Intrinsic Flexibility Index’ and in the paper I analyse the extent to which the Intrinsic Flexibility Index is correlated with spot prices in the UK wholesale electricity market.

Findings show that spot prices and intrinsic flexibility to shift activities vary harmoniously throughout the day. Reflections are also drawn on the application of this research to work on demand side flexibility.

Banner photo credit: Alireza Attari on Unsplash