Future urban energy systems: Harnessing demand side flexibility and managing data uncertainty

This thesis looks into the impact of data uncertainty on the techno-economic decisions of the actors in a future energy system, with flexibility sources. It looks into the problem from the view point of three actors, namely, the distribution system operator, aggregators (as potential operators of a demand response program), and end-users, such as building energy managers and residential consumers. A comprehensive analytical sensitivity analysis framework is developed to quantify and monetize the impact of data uncertainty on the operation of different stylized energy systems with flexible resources.

The proposed framework consists of four mathematical models: a data pre-processing module, an optimisation algorithm to model the operation of the energy system and the flexibility provider, a local (analytical) sensitivity analysis (LSA), and a global sensitivity analysis (GSA). Together, the framework is used to investigate the impact of uncertainty on the operation of a market-based energy system in the future, as well as the requirement of the existing and the emerging actors in such environment.