Automated provisioning of flexible resources for customers and distributed energy resources

Diverse load consumption patterns, intermittent renewable energy generation, and the booming increase of electric vehicles have made the electricity production and consumption curves quite uneven. Flexibility and load responsiveness to economic incentives is the most effective way to smooth the consumption curve and increase the utilization and efficiency of generation in power grid. However, the lack of a proper platform for direct transactions between electric utilities and consumers has led to limited participation of market players in load response programs.

Researchers at have developed FlexT, a platform to bridge this gap and facilitate direct access to electric utilities to load flexibility. The platform uses blockchain technology to create unique tokens for the flexibility of individual loads, allowing for their secure and easy exchange. These tokens, called electricity flexible token (EFLX), are based on the ERC721 standard on the Ethereum network. Each consumer can register their electric loads along with their flexibility on FlexT and receive a unique EFLX. This EFLX, which includes the spatial and technical metadata of the load and its flexibility, is automatically evaluated on the FlexT and its price is estimated. Moreover, FlexT platform acts as a flexibility aggregator; it purchases EFLXs from individual consumers in the form of long-term contracts, and everyday aggregates the available flexibilities according to the needs of the day-ahead market and offers them in bulk to utility companies. FlexT compensates individual minters for their actual participation in the real-time market, as well as for their initial participation in the program.

Functionally Validated

- FlexT platform uses blockchain technology to increase voluntary end-user participation.

- The FlexT tokenization process for flexible energy resources can realize cost savings and increased profits for system participants, consumers, and utility companies.

- The FlexT system helps optimize energy supply and demand curves impacted by the increased load of Electric Vehicles on the electrical grid and the variable power generation such as solar and wind.

- The tokenization process used as part of the FlexT platform has applications for other high-demand consumption activities, including smart HVAC applications.

Dean Gallagher
(801) 585-0396
dean.gallagher@utah.edu