Aggregation of demand side flexibility in a smart grid: A review for European market design

The increased share of renewable generation and the integration of Distributed Generation (DG) require more electricity system flexibility. One way to increase this flexibility is to use the potentials of demand response (DR). In order to activate the full range of customers in DR, a new market intermediary actor is needed to aggregate the resources in an adequate technical and economical format. These actors, so called “aggregators”, can act as flexibility providers to support security of supply considering network, generation and consumers constraints. However, despite their technical and economical utility, aggregators are not self-emerging in many European countries. Consequently, this paper aims at identifying the main barriers accounting for this lack of aggregators in Europe. Eventually this paper provides a policy review for European market designs that support aggregation.