Ancillary services and consumerism in India: comparative perspectives on renewable markets

Ancillary services are an integral part to support challenges such as intermittent generation, risk, and large-scale (LS) integration of renewable energy sources (RESs). New changing environments, such as system response and variation, as well as customer behavior, demonstrate the need to frame new regulations that encourage new types of products in the Indian ancillary services of the electricity market. These market conditions lead to tri-fold gaps in research: In conventional ancillary services, frequency variations and voltage limits pose limitations on RE uses in the grid, as they become slow and costly. Furthermore, the supply pattern of RESs often does not match the demand from consumers, causing significant issues for system operators and, in turn, connected consumers, industries, and regulators. For an increased penetration of distributed RESs, the current research objectively studies and compares the Indian electricity market and assesses the impact of systems parameters (frequency, voltage, and demand—f, v, d/s) on large-scale RE integration. Secondly, we aim to understand the cost–benefit influence of such systems’ levels and parameters, which may offer new ancillary services and any amendments required in regulations, regimes, and policies. An initial understanding is developed by reviewing past studies, based on secondary sources of databases of the international energy market, the IEA, IRENA, the World Bank, and Indian regulatory agencies. Using a combined methodology (qualitative synthesis used for comparative studies of the electricity market and cost–benefit analysis), this study provides insights into new ancillary products and services (fast frequency response mechanism and voltage support initiatives/methods, with some related to demand-side management). This study concludes with offering different perspectives to adopt new services, based on a comparative assessment of ancillary services, and suggests changes in regulations (f, v, and d/s) and methods for cheaper services as value propositions, offered to customers of select energy markets of Australia, the USA, the UK, and Germany. A few implications for stakeholders, such as policymakers, industry representatives, and consumers, for their better coordination to develop futuristic ancillary services within the future scope of this work are presented to support the future energy of markets and a greener energy system.