Flexibility opportunities

Flexibility opportunities have commercial value that users can valorise on. When FlexMeasures has identified commercial value of flexibility, the user is suggested to act on it. This might happen in an automated fashion (scripts reading out suggested schedules from the FlexMeasures API and implementing them to local operations if possible) or manually (operators agreeing with the opportunities identified by FlexMeasures and acting on the suggested schedules).

For this latter case, in the Flexibility opportunities web-page (a yet-to-be designed UI feature discussed below), FlexMeasures could show all flexibility opportunities that the user can act on for a selected time window.

Visualisation of opportunities

Visualising flexibility opportunities and their effects is not straightforward. Flexibility opportunities can cause changes to the power profile of an asset in potentially complex ways. One example is called the rebound effect, where a decrease in consumption leads to an increase in consumption at a later point in time, because consumption is essentially postponed. Such effects could be taken into account by FlexMeasures and shown to the user, e.g. as a part of expected value calculations and power profile forecasts.

Below is an example of what this could look like. This is a potential UX design which we have not implemented yet.

The operator can select flexibility opportunities with an attached value, and see the effects on the power profile in a visual manner. Listed flexibility opportunities include previously realised opportunities and currently offered opportunities. Currently offered opportunities are presented as an order book, where they are sorted according to their commercial value.

Of course, depending on the time window selection and constraints set by the asset owner, the rebound effects of an opportunity may partially take place outside of the selected time window.