On the Use of Causality Inference in Designing Tariffs to Implement More Effective Behavioral Demand Response Programs

Kamalanathan Ganesan, João Tomé Saraiva and Ricardo J. Bessa
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Kamalanathan Ganesan: Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto (FEUP), 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
João Tomé Saraiva: Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto (FEUP), 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
Ricardo J. Bessa: INESC Technology and Science (INESC TEC), 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 14, 1-20

Abstract: Providing a price tariff that matches the randomized behavior of residential consumers is one of the major barriers to demand response (DR) implementation. The current trend of DR products provided by aggregators or retailers are not consumer-specific, which poses additional barriers for the engagement of consumers in these programs. In order to address this issue, this paper describes a methodology based on causality inference between DR tariffs and observed residential electricity consumption to estimate consumers’ consumption elasticity. It determines the flexibility of each client under the considered DR program and identifies whether the tariffs offered by the DR program affect the consumers’ usual consumption or not. The aim of this approach is to aid aggregators and retailers to better tune DR offers to consumer needs and so to enlarge the response rate to their DR programs. We identify a set of critical clients who actively participate in DR events along with the most responsive and least responsive clients for the considered DR program. We find that the percentage of DR consumers who actively participate seem to be much less than expected by retailers, indicating that not all consumers’ elasticity is effectively utilized.

Keywords: consumption elasticity; causal inference; data-driven; demand response; residential consumers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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