Thermal systems in process industry as a source for electrical flexibility

The need for balancing services in the European electricity grid is increasing. The reason is twofold: renewable energy sources (RES) are still in up rise, meanwhile the classical power plants — commonly used to provide balancing — are economically pushed out of the market. This results in less available balancing resources but increasing balancing needs as RES are less predictable and controllable. The decline of the balancing volume provided by classical power plants can be counteracted by the concept of Demand Side Response (DSR). Balancing services are shifted towards the electricity consumers instead of traditionally being an electricity producer's responsibility. The concept of DSR is well documented as it was already introduced in 1973 at the time of the first energy (oil) crisis. Now, the DSR concept gains again momentum as electricity markets rapidly change to adopt RES. New insights and incentives are to be investigated as the electrical landscape has changed tremendously since the first introduction of DSR. This paper will focus on the concept of DSR in process industry.