Potential for demand side management in automotive manufacturing

With the growth of renewable energy, an increasing share of power generation does not naturally follow the demand. In certain regions, overproduction has been observed in times of high generation and low load. This mismatch can be countered by time-shifting flexible loads in a smart grid enhancing the usage of renewable energy. The industry as the main electric energy consumer in Germany and worldwide can play an important role to better integrate renewable resources to power grid. Furthermore, time-flexible production systems can benefit from flexible prices, and the CO₂ footprint per product can be reduced. In order to determine the potential for participating in demand side management, main consumers among the different industry sectors and time-flexible industrial processes need to be investigated. In this paper, a study is carried out describing time-flexible processes and their potential for demand side management in the automotive industry. Constraints and boundary conditions for the operation of an automotive production line are considered. A simulation and an experimental example are analyzed to illustrate the potential for demand side management.