relationships matter for demand-side response
Published: 24th October 2012
Last winter’s industrial and commercial demand-side response trial set the scene for larger trials this year.
relationships matter for demand-side response
Demand-side response from industrial and commercial customers is a crucial part of the CLNR project. In winter 2011-12, three customer trials were successfully completed: when asked to drop load or to generate, customers did so, which showed that when the network needs to reduce load, the response can make a difference and customers don’t lose out.
For the coming trials, a major challenge is finding customers to take part in an unfamiliar activity, so we need to tackle this lack of awareness. So, as before, the CLNR team is working with third parties – commercial aggregator companies such as Flexitricity, Kiwi Power and Energy Services Partnership (ESP), whose sales teams will approach customers and suggest ways to change their practices so they can participate in a trial.
This winter the team is running trials in geographical areas on Northern Powergrid’s network where it would be good to reduce demand from time to time in order to alleviate network constraints. Participants are rewarded for modifying their power consumption, whether they reduce their load, operate on-site generation, or run combined heat and power.
Relationships and contracts are key because these establish what the network operator wants to achieve, what’s expected of the customer and what they will receive in return. The first industrial and commercial trial indicated not only that customers were able to drop load or generate when necessary, without disturbing their business, but also highlighted important changes to the design and accuracy of the contracts.
In the next trial, information from these refined contracts will be made available to GUS (grand unified scheme), the coordinated network control system being developed in the CLNR project. GUS understands constraints on the network: for example if it sees that a transformer is in danger of overheating because of too much load, it will look for industrial and commercial contracts in the right area and then have the option of ‘talking’ direct to aggregators such as Kiwi Power. The aggregator will then communicate with the customer – either through an automated system, or by simply making a telephone call.
If the winter 2012-13 trials go as planned, it will show that network operators can build relationships with customers and develop attractive-enough propositions for demand-side response to work. In turn, this will demonstrate what can be achieved from ‘smarter’ commercial and technical solutions working in tandem, as an alternative to putting more copper in the ground.