Market concepts and regulatory bottlenecks for smart distribution grids in EU countries

Abstract: In the European Union, there is a driver for a change in the electricity system. The trend is to make the system more environmental friendly and improve the markets functionality. This driver often refers to the development towards a smart grid. In order to accelerate innovation in smart grid and technology application, pilot projects need to be deployed. This master thesis has been done as a part of the Stockholm Royal Seaport urban development project that is a pilot project for smart grid on distribution grid level. The aim of this report is to apply market concept and identify regulatory bottlenecks for smart grid. This report has applied market concept and identified several bottlenecks for two aspects of smart grid. The aspects are integration of distributed energy resources in medium and low voltage level and a changing customer behavior. A changing customer behavior contains both demand response and the implementation of electric vehicles. A state-of-art review on feasible solutions that improve the competition and demand side management of electricity market in smart grid and provide incentives to implement smart grid functions has been performed. The emphasis in the market aspect is on how that new actors like aggregators will enter the market and how the dynamic price can reach consumers. The emphasis in the regulatory aspect is on how regulations promote the application of smart grid supporting technologies for both the DSO and the network users. A case study has been performed for EU countries with a deeper look at Sweden. The case study investigates how far that the current regulations have reached on the way to smart grids. A state-of-art review on conclusion papers of pilot projects has been carried out. However, many pilot projects are still ongoing and not included in the review. The result shows there is still a lack of regulatory incentive to promote smart grid development and supporting market structures. Bottlenecks identified for smart grid services in the Swedish electricity market and regulation are related to four areas. These are the metering system, dynamic consumer price, active distributed units with the possibility to provide services to the system and incentives to the DSO to use new smart grid solutions in the work to enable fast and efficient connection of distributed generation.