The basis for the selection of projects in Europe was the JRC-IE report form 2011. The report
does include many, but not all, European smart grid projects, which means that it was not a
fully comprehensive selection of all ongoing projects in Europe to begin with. This list was
only used as a starting point and other projects, not included in the list were also selected
based on information and references found during the search. The same is valid for the
projects outside Europe also; several starting points were used to get an overview of different
ongoing projects. Key words were used in the selection, to assist in ensuring the validity of
the study and the focus of the report on demand side management, market regulation and
business models. However, the most crucial issue turned out to be the information
availability. Several promising projects regarding the focus and key aspects were excluded
from further study due to lack of information about results or a more detailed description of
the project design. In some cases the reason for lack in information was that the projects were
still ongoing and as these projects will be finished, interesting information is expected. Due to
time constraints the number of reviewed projects was also affected, which meant that even
more relevant projects were excluded from the study.
Regarding the information about the projects and the key findings, most of the available
information found was from the project websites and various project reports. It should be
taken into consideration when analysing the findings that most of the information has not
been systematically verified. Based on the source of the information and the purpose with it,
the information may be considered subjective. Nevertheless, the information is considered
relevant and many times it represents the only available information.
The biased issue is also relevant to discuss relating to the fact that the participants in the
different projects voluntarily agreed to participate. In some cases the participants seem to
have been offered to participate and in other cases the participants themselves have more
actively applied to participate. However the participants that agreed to participate might not
be considered entirely representative for the entire population; those who agreed could for
instance be seen as more likely to be positive to, or aware of the smart grid and demand side
management system and to already have a lower energy load. The participants that agreed to
participate may also be more likely to be responsive to prices or other incentives in the
project.
The fact that the participants are participating in a project that will be monitored and
evaluated might also increase the activity of the participants. The results may therefore not be
entirely possible to use for generalisation for a full scale implementation of the system. As it
is suggested in the Smart Study Together project, the demand response might hold a learning
curve, where the customers achieve a higher flexibility after a learning period. That is
therefore also an issue to take into consideration since it is possible that the customers will be
increasingly better at shifting their load and some of the project periods might be too short to