A major challenge: the energy transition

Over the last decades, the production of renewable energy in Luxembourg has increased and this trend is set to accelerate in the coming years. From 16.5%¹ in 2022, the share of renewable energy in the country's total energy consumption should reach 37.3%¹ in 2030. However, this shift to renewable energy is not without its challenges, particularly on the supply side. How can a constant supply of electricity be guaranteed in the future, given the intermittency of renewable energy sources and the rapid electrification of some sectors, such as mobility with electric vehicles and heating with heat pumps?

To meet this enormous challenge, Creos has been investing significantly for several years in strengthening its network and implementing smart solutions. This is a major step towards energy transition, but to ensure it succeeds, the active participation of consumers, whether they are households, SMEs, industry, or e-mobility players, is essential. By adapting their consumption to the fluctuations of renewable energy, they could optimise the capacity of the electricity grid. But how and to what extent?

1: Figures from the "Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan of Luxembourg for the period 2021-2030 - Draft update".

Flexibility of electricity consumers is a key issue

This is the subject of a joint research project by Creos, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) and the University of Luxembourg's Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT). Entitled "Flexibility potentials and user behaviour analysis" (FlexBeAn), this project aims to study and model the flexibility potential of electricity consumers (households, the industrial sector, SMEs, actors in the e-mobility sector).
Specifically, the project will revolve around three axes: technical, behavioural and economic.

• The first will focus on the technical possibilities and limitations and assess how much flexibility can reasonably be expected from consumers across all sectors and when.
• The second will help to better understand the behaviour of different stakeholders and their motivations for becoming more flexible in the way they use electricity.
• The third will look at how this flexibility can be used and analyse how this potential could be mobilised through incentives based on the evolution of energy markets over the next few years.

Let's accelerate the reduction of our carbon footprint together

In the long term, this innovative project will provide essential information to achieve the following objectives

• Energy consumers from all sectors (households, SMEs, industry and e-mobility stakeholders) will actively participate in the energy transition and become key players in the energy market of the future.
• The assets of distribution system operators (DSOs) as well as the distributed energy resources of prosumers (both electricity consumers and producers) and businesses will be economically optimised.
• The carbon footprint of energy consumption will be reduced more rapidly by accelerating the energy transition, notably by attenuating investments in the grid, without hampering the increased integration of renewable energy sources.

But to have a chance of achieving these ambitious goals, we need to join forces. Make your contribution to the FlexBeAn project, whether you are a household, an SME, an industry or any other company. If you are a household, a survey to assess your flexibility potential is now available. You can also support the LIST researchers by subscribing to their service on the Smarty+ platform, which will be launched shortly.

• FlexBeAn Survey