Behavioral flexibility in demand response: A comparison of energy communities and individual prosumers based on real consumption and flexibility data

The paper analyzes the advantages of “behavioral flexibility” in Energy Communities (ECs) and for individual prosumers. The EC framework provides a natural context for applying energy flexibility, as ECs actively involve users who can be sensitized to exploit demand response potential and better align renewable photovoltaic production with user demand. However, psychological, behavioral, and habitual factors influence the actual flexibility rate, thus affecting the actual available load shift rate. This study employs an innovative data-collection method, a serious game with 192 participants, to account for these behavioral aspects and to investigate the availability of people to change their habits for energy-saving goals by accepting load-shifting requests. The game is also used to generate energy demand profiles (heating, cooling, and electric appliances). Then, five different energy scenarios are created, including both individual prosumers and ECs. The results show that energy sharing in ECs significantly enhances self-consumed energy (up to +23 %), reduces CO2 emissions (up to −7 %), and lowers costs (up to −35 %) compared to individual prosumers. Additionally, the game has shown that participants are willing to shift about 40 % of their daily energy usage. This leads to an increase in self-sufficiency of up to +20 % in both individual prosumers and ECs frameworks. Finally, the study demonstrates that a higher flexibility in ECs can achieve the same energy, economic, and environmental benefits as installing more PV capacity, thus improving the benefit-cost ratio of the entire EC.