# A Comparison of Households' Energy Balance in Residential Smart Grid Pilots in the Netherlands
## 4 Discussion  
From our results, it can be concluded that simultaneity in electricity generation or load is much higher for energy technologies that are being deployed more and more frequently in the context of energy transition, namely PV systems [53] and heat pumps. This should be an important focus point for DSOs. The power flows found in this study could be hazardous if PV systems and heat pumps were to be installed in all Dutch households, as current grids in the Netherlands are not equipped to transport the reported power flows. Various options exist to address this challenge. For PV, one option is to curtail electricity generation during hours with high solar irradiation. This only leads to limited losses in the total energy yield [32]. A second option is to store the surplus of PV-generated electricity \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c} \hline
**Smart Meter** & \begin{tabular}{c} **Annual** \\ **Import** \\ **(MWh)** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **Peak** \\ **Import** \\ **(kW)** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **Peak PV** \\ **(Gw)** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **Annual PV** \\ **Generation** \\ **(MWh)** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **Self-** \\ **Consumption** \\ **(\%)** \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} **Self-** \\ **Sufficiency** \\ **(\%)** \\ \end{tabular} & \
\begin{tabular}{c} **Import** \\ **Simultaneity** \\ **(\%)** \\ \end{tabular} &
\begin{tabular}{c} **Feed-in** \\ **Simultaneity** \\ **(\%)** \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline Zonneal & 3.2 & 4.8 & 0.27 & 0.22 & - & - & 20.5\% & 88.8\% \\ R4I & 3.1 & 5.1 & 2.2 & 1 & 50\% & 20\% & 23.0\% & 74.9\% \\ JEM-Meulenspie & 4.5 & 6.2 & 1.8 & 0.9 & - & - & 65.1\% & 89.5\% \\ PMC & 4.3 & 6.8 & 0.5 & 0.86 & 70\% & 18\% & 70.5\% & n.a. \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Summary of the calculated key performance indicators in average values. Figure 6: Boxplots of annual self-consumption and self-sufficiency ratios. (**a**) results for Rendement voor ledereen pilot and (**b**) for Power Matchig City. For each box, the red line indicates the median, and the bottom and top edges of the box indicate the 25 th and 75 th percentiles, respectively. The whiskers extend to the most extreme data points without considering the outliers, and the outliers are plotted individually in red. The black dots represent the community aggregated values for self-consumption and self-sufficiency. in storage, where stationary storage and EVs are options. In the latter case, smart solar charging holds much potential. Heat pumps present an even larger challenge, as controlling these loads could have an impact on the comfort levels of households. One option is to provide incentives to households to increase the range of temperatures that households would tolerate. Also, electricity could be supplied by stationary or electric vehicle storage. Lastly, thermal storage could be an attractive option. Future analyses must determine which option, or which combination of options, is most suitable. Further, we will quantitatively discuss the main findings by categories. Regarding the consumption patterns of our sample, the yearly exported electricity values are quite modest, considering the fact that not everyone in a neighborhood owns a PV system, Furthermore, results show that most PV generated electricity is consumed locally without resulting into transmission losses. This holds true even for communities with a high penetration of PV systems. R4I had an average PV system size per household of 1.7 kWp, but SSR at the community level was still 60-70%. Yearly imported values have a diverse range considering the size of the samples. For creating insight into various consumption patterns, pilots usually try to include various household sizes to sample different fractions of the population. For instance, this is not the case in JEM-Easy street, which ends up having outstandingly low consumption, which is not representative for an average household in the Netherlands. However, other groups or pilots had more diverse household sizes.