Price-based demand side management: Assessing the impacts of time-of-use tariffs on residential electricity demand and peak shifting in Northern Italy

One of the most common Demand Side Management programs consists of Time-of-Use (TOU) tariffs, where consumers are charged differently depending on the time of the day when they make use of energy services. This paper assesses the impacts of TOU tariffs on a dataset of residential users from the Province of Trento in Northern Italy in terms of changes in electricity demand, price savings, peak load shifting and peak electricity demand at substation level. Findings highlight that TOU tariffs bring about higher average electricity consumption and lower payments by consumers. A significant level of load shifting takes place for morning peaks. However, issues with evening peaks are not resolved. Finally, TOU tariffs lead to increases in electricity demand for substations at peak time.

Identified consumers: an experiment on the informativeness of cross-demand price effects

Often, firms have no information on the specification of the true demand model they are faced with. It is, however, a well established fact that trial-and-error algorithms may be used by them in order to learn how to make optimal decisions. Using experimental methods, we identify a property of the information on past actions which helps the seller of two asymmetric demand substitutes to reach the optimal prices more precisely and faster. The property concerns the possibility of disaggregating changes in each product’s demand into client exit/entry and shift from one product to the other.

Any response? How demand response could be enhanced based on early UK experience

Policy makers are in broad agreement that demand response should play a major role in EU electricity systems and provide much needed future system flexibility. Yet, little demand response has been forthcoming in member states to date. This paper identifies some of the technical potential for demand response, based on empirical data from one UK demand aggregator. Half-hourly electricity readings of demand during normal operation and during response events have been analysed for different industry and service sectors. We review these findings in the context of ongoing EU policy developments with particular focus on the role appropriate arrangements to enhance the available resource. We conclude that in some sectors appropriate policy and regulation could triple the available response capacity and thereby lead to stronger commercial uptake of demand response.

Apple pollination: demand depends on variety and supply depends on pollinator identity

Insect pollination underpins apple production but the extent to which different pollinator guilds supply this service, particularly across different apple varieties, is unknown. Such information is essential if appropriate orchard management practices are to be targeted and proportional to the potential benefits pollinator species may provide. Here we use a novel combination of pollinator effectiveness assays (floral visit effectiveness), orchard field surveys (flower visitation rate) and pollinator dependence manipulations (pollinator exclusion experiments) to quantify the supply of pollination services provided by four different pollinator guilds to the production of four commercial varieties of apple. We show that not all pollinators are equally effective at pollinating apples, with hoverflies being less effective than solitary bees and bumblebees, and the relative abundance of different pollinator guilds visiting apple flowers of different varieties varies significantly. Based on this, the taxa specific economic benefits to UK apple production have been established. The contribution of insect pollinators to the economic output in all varieties was estimated to be £92.1M across the UK, with contributions varying widely across taxa: solitary bees (£51.4M), honeybees (£21.4M), bumblebees (£18.6M) and hoverflies (£0.7M). This research highlights the differences in the economic benefits of four insect pollinator guilds to four major apple varieties in the UK. This information is essential to underpin appropriate investment in pollination services management and provides a model that can be used in other entomolophilous crops to improve our understanding of crop pollination ecology.