The positive and negative impact of novel utility demand response programme and stochastic utility-driven events on renewable penetration and flexibility activation of train and station systems

Integrating an incentive-driven demand response program (DRP) into a metro railway system can enhance the techno-economic benefits of grid operators and metro railway operators by modulating the grid interactions. To facilitate demand response (DR), all energy flexibility resources within the metro network, such as heating, cooling, electrical, and vehicle systems, should be individually regulated by optimal control strategies. Therefore, an automated energy management system was developed and implemented to prioritise and logically control various energy flexibility resources to maximise the annual performance based on the requirements of the DR signal from the utility grid. Automated DR management helps to achieve an annual DR incentive of 0.57 × 10⁶ HKD, enabling a 2.9 times lower annual operational cost of 0.28 × 10⁶ HKD compared to the reference, even after accounting for the annual electricity tariff of 0.84 × 10⁶ HKD. The techno-economic impacts of becoming a DR participant were stochastically studied using Hong Kong's DRP by examining all crucial factors in the DR business model. In addition, this study defines a methodology for determining the optimal demand reduction target without biasing any stakeholders. Then, the DR business model was comparatively evaluated between a prosumer-based energy system and the same system without renewable energy support. The former system loses the DR incentive in proportion to the load matching compared to the latter system. Moreover, the DRP was extended from static to dynamic DR support, and the results show that considering dynamic DR can further increase the economic benefit of all stakeholders.