Cost-effective incentives for local electric utilities and industries in co-operation : modelling of technical measures

Sammanfattning: In the Swedish electricity system there is a great potential for increasing the cost efficiency of the electricity use. However, today the economic incentives, offered for instance by existing electricity rates, are too weak to improve the use of the system. On the Swedish electricity market there are, at least, three different actors, the power producer, the distributor and the customer. Today these actors act separately due to low awareness of the costs for electricity generation, over the year and the day. If the actors are aware of the real electricity costs, cost-effective incentives will arise to introduce energy system measures that will reduce the energy system cost considerably. The thesis presents two energy system analyses of an existing Swedish municipality. The first analysis deals with the introduction of industrial end-use measures, with the local utility’s existing electricity rates as boundary conditions. The analysis is carried out with a simulation model for electricity use in industries. The second analysis deals with the introduction of energy system measures, on the municipal supply-side and demand-side, when the local electric utility and the customers are regarded as one system. The analysis is carried out with an optimization model, that is based on linear programming. The results show that if 17 industries introduce end-use measures, with the existing electricity rates as boundary conditions, their energy system costs will be reduced by 12 MSEK for a time period of 10 years, whereas the local utility will increase its energy system cost by 6 MSEK. However, if there is a co-operation between the local electric utility and the customers, their joint energy system cost will be reduced by 330 MSEK for a time period of 10 years.