Definition of Distribution Network Tariffs Considering Distribution Generation and Demand Response

The use of distribution networks in the current scenario of high penetration of Distributed Generation (DG) is a problem of great importance. In the competitive environment of electricity markets and smart grids, Demand Response (DR) is also gaining notable impact with several benefits for the whole system. The work presented in this paper comprises a methodology able to define the cost allocation in distribution networks considering large integration of DG and DR resources. The proposed methodology is divided into three phases and it is based on an AC Optimal Power Flow (OPF) including the determination of topological distribution factors, and consequent application of the MW-mile method. The application of the proposed tariffs definition methodology is illustrated in a distribution network with 33 buses, 66 DG units, and 32 consumers with DR capacity.

Remuneration Structure Definition for Distributed Generation Units and Demand Response Participants Aggregation

The implementation of competitive electricity markets has changed the consumers’ and distributed generation position power systems operation. The use of distributed generation and the participation in demand response programs, namely in smart grids, bring several advantages for consumers, aggregators, and system operators. The present paper proposes a remuneration structure for aggregated distributed generation and demand response resources. A virtual power player aggregates all the resources. The resources are aggregated in a certain number of clusters, each one corresponding to a distinct tariff group, according to the economic impact of the resulting remuneration tariff. The determined tariffs are intended to be used for several months. The aggregator can define the periodicity of the tariffs definition. The case study in this paper includes 218 consumers, and 66 distributed generation units.

Optimization of Generation and Aggregated Consumption Shifting for Demand Response Programs Definition

The concept of demand response has drawing attention to the active participation in the economic operation of power systems, namely in the context of recent electricity markets and smart grid models and implementations. In these competitive contexts, aggregators are necessary in order to make possible the participation of small size consumers and generation units. The methodology proposed in the present paper aims to address the demand shifting between periods, considering multi-period demand response events. The focus is given to the impact in the subsequent periods. A Virtual Power Player operates the network, aggregating the available resources, and minimizing the operation costs. The illustrative case study included is based on a scenario of 218 consumers including generation sources.

Real-Time Simulation of Real-Time Pricing Demand Response to Meet Wind Variations

Recent changes of paradigm in power systems opened the opportunity to the active participation of new players. The small and medium players gain new opportunities while participating in demand response programs. This paper explores the optimal resources scheduling in two distinct levels. First, the network operator facing large wind power variations makes use of real time pricing to induce consumers to meet wind power variations. Then, at the consumer level, each load is managed according to the consumer preferences. The two-level resources schedule has been implemented in a real-time simulation platform, which uses hardware for consumer’ loads control. The illustrative example includes a situation of large lack of wind power and focuses on a consumer with 18 loads.

Consumption Management of Air Conditioning Devices for the Participation in Demand Response Programs

Demand Response has been taking over the years an extreme importance. There’s a lot of demand response programs, one of them proposed in this paper, using air conditioners that could increase the power quality and decrease the spent money in many ways like: infrastructures and customers energy bill reduction. This paper proposes a method and a study on how air conditioners could integrate demand response programs. The proposed method has been modelled as an energy resources management optimization problem. This paper presents two case studies, the first one with all costumers participating and second one with some of costumers. The results obtained for both case studies have been analyzed.

Influence of Immunopreventable Diseases and AIDS on the Demand of an Infectious Diseases Department in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, in the Course of Thirty Years (1965-1994)

Brazil's nosologic profile has been sustaining profound modifications. Some occurred because of massive immunization campaigns and socioeconomic and demographic trends. Some yet were pure nosologic transitions, such as the emergence of AIDS. In this demand study it is described how these changes reflected on the 8,630 admissions of an Infectious Diseases Department in Niterói, along a thirty year period. Brazilian rural endemic diseases were infrequent (3.45%). Men predominated (62%) all the time, in all age strata and in nearly all diseases. Children under fifteen predominated until 1983. There was, in the case of tetanus, a striking rise in age strata. Institutional mortality dropped from 31% in 1965 to 10% in 1984, but rose since then to 15% in 1994. However, if AIDS patients had not been computed, mortality would have kept descending till 8% at the end of the study period. The crescent unimportance of immunopreventable diseases paralleled with the growing prominence of AIDS. In less than a decade, AIDS ranked fifth among the most frequent diseases in the whole period of thirty years. As opposed to the immunopreventable diseases, neither meningitides nor pneumonia appear to be in decline. AIDS, by its exponential incidence, by its chronic character, and by the uncountable opportunistic infections it determines, imposes itself as a challenge for the coming years.

Double coverage and demand for health care: Evidence from quantile regression

An individual experiences double coverage when he bene ts from more than one health insurance plan at the same time. This paper examines the impact of such supplementary insurance on the demand for health care services. Its novelty is that within the context of count data modelling and without imposing restrictive parametric assumptions, the analysis is carried out for di¤erent points of the conditional distribution, not only for its mean location. Results indicate that moral hazard is present across the whole outcome distribution for both public and private second layers of health insurance coverage but with greater magnitude in the latter group. By looking at di¤erent points we unveil that stronger double coverage e¤ects are smaller for high levels of usage. We use data for Portugal, taking advantage of particular features of the public and private protection schemes on top of the statutory National Health Service. By exploring the last Portuguese Health Survey, we were able to evaluate their impacts on the consumption of doctor visi

Nutritional status in relation to the efficacy of the rhesus-human reassortant, tetravalent rotavirus vaccine (RRV-TV) in infants from Belém, Pará State, Brazil

The rhesus-human reassortant, tetravalent rotavirus vaccine (RRV-TV) was licensed for routine use in the United States of America but it was recently withdrawn from the market because of its possible association with intussusception as an adverse event. The protective efficacy of 3 doses of RRV-TV, in its lower-titer (4 x 10(4) pfu/dose) formulation, was evaluated according to the nutritional status of infants who participated in a phase III trial in Belém, Northern Brazil. A moderate protection conferred by RRV-TV was related to weight-for-age Z-scores (WAZ) greater than -1 only, with rates of 38% (p = 0.04) and 40% (p = 0.04) for all- and- pure rotavirus diarrhoeal cases, respectively. In addition, there was a trend for greater efficacy (43%, p = 0.05) among infants reaching an height-for-age Z-score (HAZ) of > -1. Taking WAZ, HAZ and weight-for-height Z-score (WHZ) indices <= -1 together, there was no significant protection (p > 0.05) if both placebo and vaccine groups are compared. There was no significant difference if rates of mixed and pure rotavirus diarrhoeal cases are compared in relation to HAZ, WAZ and weight-for-height Z-score (WHZ) indices. Although a low number of malnourished infants could be identified in the present study, our data show some evidence that malnutrition may interfere with the efficacy of rotavirus vaccines in developing countries.

Stackelberg leadership with demand uncertainty in a differentiated duopoly

On a symmetric differentiated Stackelberg duopoly model in which there is asymmetric demand information owned by leading and follower firms, we show that the leading firm does not necessarily have advantage over the following one. The reason for this is that the second mover can adjust its output level after observing the realized demand, while the first mover chooses its output level only with the knowledge of demand distribution.

Quantity-setting competition under uncertain demand

We consider a quantity-setting duopoly model, and we study the decision to move first or second, by assuming that. the firms produce homogeneous goods and that. there is some demand uncertainty. The competitive phase consists of two periods, and in either period, the firms can make a production decision that is irreversible. As far as the firms are allowed to choose (non-cooperatively) the period they make the decision, we study the circumstances that favour sequential rather than simultaneous decisions.

Giardia lamblia and other intestinal parasitic infections and their relationships with nutritional status in children in Brazilian Amazon

The objective of this survey was to assess the relationships between intestinal parasitism, nutritional status and hemoglobin level in children with Indian ascendancy living in an urban area in Brazilian Amazon. We carried out a cross-sectional survey obtaining anthropometric, parasitological and socioeconomic data, and hemoglobin measurements of children aged six to 84 months. Anthropometric data were expressed as z-scores for weight for age (WAZ), height for age (HAZ), weight for height (WHZ) and mid upper circumference for age (MUACZ) parameters. Parasitological examinations were performed through Ritchie (n = 307), Kato-Katz (n = 278), Baermann-Moraes (n = 238) and Safranin-methylene blue methods (n = 307). Hemoglobin measurements were obtained with a Hemocue® photometer (n = 282). Socioeconomic data were used in order to classify children in three family income strata (n = 242). Multiple linear regression analysis showed independent interactions between Giardia lamblia and WAZ (beta = -0.195, SE = 0.138, p = 0.003), WHZ (beta = -0.161, SE = 0.133, p = 0.018) and MUACZ (beta = -0.197, SE = 0.143, p = 0.011), controlling for age, sex, family income, Ascaris lumbricoides, and hookworm infection. Also, the multivariate model showed that the only variable associated with hemoglobin levels was age. Intestinal parasitism control should increase children's possibilities of full development in the studied area.

Stackelberg duopoly with demand uncertainty

We consider a symmetric Stackelberg model in which there is asymmetric demand information owned by first and second movers. We analyse the advantages of leadership and flexibility, and prove that when the leading firm faces demand uncertainty, but the follower does not, the first mover does not necessarily have advantage over the second mover. Moreover, we show that the advantage of one firm over the other depends upon the demand fluctuation and also upon the degree of substitutability of the products.

Flexibility and leadership advantages in a model with uncertain demand

We consider a differentiated Stackelberg model with demand uncertainty only for the first mover. We study the advantages of flexibility over leadership as the degree of the differentiation of the goods changes.

Demand Response Programs Design and Use Considering Intensive Penetration of Distributed Generation

Further improvements in demand response programs implementation are needed in order to take full advantage of this resource, namely for the participation in energy and reserve market products, requiring adequate aggregation and remuneration of small size resources. The present paper focuses on SPIDER, a demand response simulation that has been improved in order to simulate demand response, including realistic power system simulation. For illustration of the simulator’s capabilities, the present paper is proposes a methodology focusing on the aggregation of consumers and generators, providing adequate tolls for the demand response program’s adoption by evolved players. The methodology proposed in the present paper focuses on a Virtual Power Player that manages and aggregates the available demand response and distributed generation resources in order to satisfy the required electrical energy demand and reserve. The aggregation of resources is addressed by the use of clustering algorithms, and operation costs for the VPP are minimized. The presented case study is based on a set of 32 consumers and 66 distributed generation units, running on 180 distinct operation scenarios.

A multi-objective model for scheduling of short-term incentive-based demand response programs offered by electricity retailers

In this paper, we formulate the electricity retailers’ short-term decision-making problem in a liberalized retail market as a multi-objective optimization model. Retailers with light physical assets, such as generation and storage units in the distribution network, are considered. Following advances in smart grid technologies, electricity retailers are becoming able to employ incentive-based demand response (DR) programs in addition to their physical assets to effectively manage the risks of market price and load variations. In this model, the DR scheduling is performed simultaneously with the dispatch of generation and storage units. The ultimate goal is to find the optimal values of the hourly financial incentives offered to the end-users. The proposed model considers the capacity obligations imposed on retailers by the grid operator. The profit seeking retailer also has the objective to minimize the peak demand to avoid the high capacity charges in form of grid tariffs or penalties. The non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) is used to solve the multi-objective problem. It is a fast and elitist multi-objective evolutionary algorithm. A case study is solved to illustrate the efficient performance of the proposed methodology. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the model for designing the incentive-based DR programs and indicate the efficiency of NSGA-II in solving the retailers’ multi-objective problem.