IEEE Electrification - June 2019 - 17

Using resources
flexibly offers new
opportunities to
bring lighting, water,
food, and other
valuable services
to underserved
customers
efficiently.

shows that using a smart operation
for the district can improve its performance, especially in extreme cases
where more controllable resources
are available.
The study is taken one step further
by optimizing the operation of the district based on a wide range of different
objectives, including minimizing of
costs and emissions and maximizing
benefits from trading active network
management, energy, reserve, and
other services in relevant markets. See
the suite of results in terms of the net
present cost (NPC) in Figure 9. This
smart operation of the district is more
in line with the premise that an energy
system should not be operated to provide energy vectors
(e.g., electricity and gas), but instead use combinations of
available energy vectors to meet customers' needs for lighting, heating, and other services. The results show that it is
possible to achieve different environmental and economic
savings by customizing the district's operation. This

20
CO2 (ktCO2)

current conditions, three different
cases are considered: conservative,
modest, and extreme. In the conservative case, in addition to installing
PV, EHP, and CHP devices, Manchester University invests in awareness
campaigns to encourage switching
lights and computers off when they
are not in use, as well as modest
interventions in double-glazed steel
windows and waterproof roof covers. In the modest case, the university makes additional investments in
energy devices and efficiency measures. In the extreme case, relatively
large investments in energy efficiency measures are made, which are
coupled with a significant installation of energy infrastructure. The total PV, EHP, and CHP capacities associated with each case are presented in Table 1, and the
district's relevant economic and environmental performance is presented in Table 2.
In these cases, following BAU practices, the multienergy infrastructure operates in the heat-following mode.
These practices do not take advantage of the energy sector's variable needs or the district's potential to operate in
a smart manner. Accordingly, it is reasonable to assume
that the benefits reported in Table 2 correspond mainly to
the multienergy assets' value of flexibility.

Smarter Operation
It is possible to pursue different objectives, such as
achieving economic and carbon savings, by optimizing
the set points of the controllable devices within the district. Smart operation, in which the district is operated
considering variable price signals that reflect the costs of
the energy supply, network/system operation, and taxes,
allows customers to minimize their energy bills and carbon emissions and could also permit them to trade
demand-side flexibility in different markets. This type of
operation can be substantially more attractive than traditional BAU practices, as shown in Table 3. The study

18
16
14
12
10

2.2

2.4

2.6
2.8
NPC (M£)

3.2

3.4

Baseline (BAU)

Baseline (Smart)

Conservative (BAU)
Modest (BAU)
Extreme (BAU)

Conservative (Smart)
Modest (Smart)
Extreme (Smart)

Figure 9. The performance of the Manchester district under different
conditions.

TABLE 4. The value of flexibility associated with assets and smart operation.
Economic Savings (%*)
Conservative

Modest

Extreme

Benefit Attributed To

Minimum

Maximum

Minimum

Maximum

Minimum

Maximum

Assets

10.17

9.06

20.02

12.22

27.06

14.83

Smart operation

0.31

0.47

8.61

9.98

13.1

15.33

Total

10.48

9.54

28.63

22.20

40.16

30.16

*: compared with the baseline energy costs.

IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / J UNE 2 0 1 9

IEEE Electrification - June 2019

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