Flexibility services in the electrical system

The work presented in this thesis considers the electrical flexibility from the electric load to its usage as a commodity. The conception of the European electrical system has led to a large amount of actors that are impacted by flexibility exchanges. This thesis proposes approaches to assess the impact of exchanging flexibility in the electrical system and analyzes the complex interactions resulting from these exchanges. The modeling techniques used to carry the analysis are optimization, game theory and agent-based modeling. The impacts on different parts of the electrical system are presented: the day-ahead energy market, the secondary reserve and the distribution system. Since flexibility is the base block of this thesis, two methods to obtain flexibility from actual consumption processes are broached: direct control of the loads and dynamic pricing. One chapter provides an example of how flexibility can be obtained by the direct control of a portfolio of heat pumps and another chapter studies the control of electric heaters and boilers via the use of a simple price signal.