Assessing the potential of laptops for demand response applications

Laptops are widely deployed but underused as flexibility assets, despite their potential to support the grid and reduce electricity costs for users via coordinated battery management. As curtailment of renewable energy rises globally, identifying low-cost, scalable sources of demand-side flexibility has become increasingly urgent. This work explores the novel hypothesis that laptops can function as a distributed fleet of mini-batteries, offering system-level flexibility through optimised management of charging and discharging cycles. A simulation framework was developed using real-world electricity prices and 15-minute laptop usage profiles derived from badge data collected over a year from 93 employees; four scenarios were analysed, combining two national grid contexts (Spain and Germany) with two typical work schedules (morning and full-day). The results confirm that the Laptop Demand Response strategy was found to be effective under all analysed scenarios, with comparable outcomes across both countries and enhanced performance when laptop consumption is misaligned with price minima, intra-day price variability is high, and surplus generation is frequent; under a full-day schedule, the strategy reduced average electricity costs by up to 47 % in Germany and 43 % in Spain, while surplus energy utilisation increased by up to 290 % and 10 %, respectively. These findings demonstrate that a negligible marginal cost, software-based coordination of existing laptop batteries can unlock measurable flexibility benefits, offering a scalable and fast deployable solution to support further renewable energy integration.