From November 2008 to March 2013, the E-DeMa research project developed and tested solutions to enable citizens to manage their electricity consumption sensibly and actively participate as suppliers in a local electricity market.
Washing laundry and dishes when the supply of electricity is high and the price of electricity is low, feeding electricity into the grid themselves with state-of-the-art heating systems when the price of electricity is high. E-DeMa simulated all of these situations. Around 700 participants took part in one of the largest field tests for the practical energy transition in private households in the model regions of Mülheim an der Ruhr and Krefeld. A smart electricity meter with a communication module and an interface to the home PC was installed in all participating households. They received information via the Internet about when it is cheapest to consume electricity. This is often the case at night, but also when there is a lot of renewable energy in the grid.
Around one hundred households were also provided with intelligent washing machines, dryers and dishwashers that automatically adjusted their operating times according to the cheapest electricity prices. Participants with a CHP system were also able to offer their self-generated electricity and feed it into the grid. The consumers thus became active market participants.
The project partners:
RWE AG, ProSyst, Miele, Siemens, swk, tu-dortmund, RUB, University of Duisburg Essen
