Energy Positivity and Flexibility in Districts

This chapter examines the concept of energy positivity and argues that energy positivity, in the classical sense (i.e., districts that generate more electricity than they consume), is not a suitable objective or metric for Energy Positive Neighborhoods (EPNs), or smart energy districts more generally. Instead, it is argued that flexibility is a more suitable objective/metric, given the various variable and dynamic factors which effect electricity systems, and that, in a liberalized system, economic value is the most suitable proxy for flexibility. Through quantitative case studies, the economic value of the classic definition of energy positivity and of flexibility is examined to demonstrate the nonequivalence of these objectives, before suggesting how the economic value metric can be made a better proxy for flexibility. Subsequently, some other possible objectives for an EPN are considered, illustrating how following one objective will generally produce a result which is suboptimal with respect to another metric. Then methods for multicriteria analysis to consider multiple objectives simultaneously are presented, before concluding remarks on energy positivity and flexibility in districts are given.