The European Union aims for climate neutrality by 2050 through emission reduction and increased use of non-programmable renewable energy sources. The need for flexibility services arises with greater electrification of demand and a more distributed and uncertain generation. These services are crucial for the stability and safe operation of the electrical system, spanning from generation to demand, including the grid, storage systems, and regulations governing end-user participation in flexibility mechanisms.

This report focuses on evaluating the flexibility potential of demand, both as individual resources and aggregates, with a specific focus on residential heating and cooling systems. We will present the mathematical formulation of the methodology developed for the aggregation of distributed resources, considering various types of resources and application scenarios.

Another contribution involves defining a specific procedure to quantify the flexibility of heat pumps using monitoring data, including data acquisition campaigns in residential and office buildings, along with experimental tests in the RSE Energy Efficiency laboratory, representing a single housing unit case.

Exploration of potential management architectures for enabling these resources to participate in flexibility mechanisms is also undertaken, considering possible extensions of solutions proposed, for instance, in the context of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Finally, the industrial flexibility potential is investigated and analysed by surveying some companies.

This survey collects information on the interest of local entities in participating in flexibility mechanisms, as well as potential barriers hindering active participation in this context.

The Report is available on the Italian site