Solid state breakers as climate solutions

This report describes the work performed by IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL) and co-funded by Stiftelsen Institutet för Vatten- och Luftvårdsforskning (SIVL) and Blixt Tech AB. Increased flexibility at the grid edge is required to achieve ambitious climate goals and can be provided by smart energy solutions. Such solutions are expected to support the ongoing shift on the supply side towards more renewable generation (both on grid and distributed) and to offer consumers the opportunity to reduce costs by demand shifting. In combination with better information and automation to optimize energy use, grid edge solutions can take customers a step forward to become prosumers.

Using a systematic review of the scientific literature, an overview – for France, Germany, UK and Sweden – is provided of the potential flexibility of different residential electrical loads. The potentials obtained from the literature have been upscaled to the national level, including the corresponding effects in terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The results show that between 2% and 18% of the electricity from the residential sector in the four countries could be shifted, resulting in total emissions reductions of 10 MtCO2 from peak shaving, or 24 Mt CO2 per year if the flexibility would optimize the deployment of renewables. Additional incentives are needed, and changes are required in energy price mechanisms and tariffs to make flexibility economically feasible on the market.