Comparative Assessment of Demand Response Participation in Selected European Balancing Market

This paper presents a systematic analysis highlighting the opportunities and barriers integrating third-party aggregators in selected markets. Accordingly, it develops a critical comparative framework covering the technical entry specifications, and regulatory conditions evaluating the access of small-scale demand response (DR) aggregation. Promising pilots have been implemented across Europe testing small-scale load aggregation in various platforms, including balancing and ancillary services. By exploring the projects in the case countries, challenges have been outlined. The results show that balancing participation is still dominated by conventional generation units i.e. traditional players. Additionally, compensation of concerned stakeholders, namely balance responsible parties, remains unclear. Nonetheless, improvement is noticeable upon selected markets.