Intelligent IT-based solutions, often called Smart Grids, are considered to be the future balancers of renewable energy sources. One area within the Smart Grid concept is called demand response, which is focused on making customers more consumption flexible by making them more active in their consumption. In this thesis the aim is to analyze a business model by investigating the income potential for a demand response solution as well as its market potential. This has been done through literature studies, interviews and development of a computational model. The use of 5000 households with flexible consumption can provide a cost reduction of 17.2% or 2.4 million SEK for a balance responsible party during an average year. If the solution is used to make strategic bids on the regulation markets the study indicates that the largest potential for revenues lies within this strategy. Potential customers show a genuine interest in the solution, but are worried about implementation costs, product reliability and contract solutions. The business model needs further development to increase its reliability. The impact of using strategic bids optimally needs to be investigated, and a thorough market analysis would be of great help to answer the questions: how should tomorrow’s contracts look like and which actors will be present on tomorrow’s electricity market?

The electricity demand of a waste water treatment plants follows the diurnal pattern of society, and this generally leads to higher demand when the market price is high. The possibility to adapt the operation after price variation has been known since long, but few studies have been published. It has been suggested that the influent can be redistributed using an equalization basin, and one study showed 16 % reduction in cost with equalization to constant flow. Oxygen supply by aeration uses the major part of electricity, and adaptation of aeration intensity has also been suggested. However, this requires respect for effluent limits, especially for nitrogen, as larger plants are often equipped with nitrogen removal. In this study, optimal control of aeration was used to evaluate the potential of adapted aeration. Use of an equalization basin was also studied. A reduced version of Benchmark Simulation Model no. 1 was used, with only one basin. Aeration was optimized for minimal cost given a price profile for 24 hours, under a constraint on ammonia discharge. Cost was reduced with 1-2.5 % compared to energy-optimal control. Constant flow equalization showed an energy reduction of 2.5-12 %, and a cost reduction of additionally up to 5 %. Control adapted after price gave another 1-3 % savings. The nitrification process is sensitive to oxygen and ammonia concentration. This makes it difficult to redistribute nitrification over the day, especially with a one basin model. It is therefore motivated to study a model with more basins.