Finding the Trustworthy Consumers for Demand Response Events by Dealing With Uncertainty

The challenges launched by the Smart Grids paradigm are getting far more complex from the management perspective. First, with the penetration of the volatile renewable energy production, the existing infrastructure is obsolete, and to avoid costly investments in the system restructuring, the demand side must provide flexibility – introducing the Demand Response (DR) concept. Second, the authors are motivated by the participation of these new players in DR programs which may be uncertain due to several factors: the context of which the event is triggered, lack of knowledge, and low experience in the market transactions. The authors contribute with a methodology to optimally manage active communities by creating a trustworthy rate, as innovation, to select participants in DR events. Resorting on information from each participant according to the context in which the DR event is triggered, the Aggregator will be able to select the more reliable ones, avoiding unnecessary costs. In the case study presented, the DR program load shifting is employed, and the viability of the proposed method is tested.