Balancing Green Power: How to deal with variable energy sources by David Elliott

Author:David Elliott
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750312301
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Published: 2016-04-06T16:00:00+00:00

As the International Energy Agency says in its review of smart grids, part of the aim of smart grid systems is to aid ‘informed customer choices about consumption’ and enable consumers ‘to use energy more prudently’ via the provision of information, as with the current generation of smart meters. Along with electricity pricing, it says that smart grids can ‘incentivise more sustainable patterns of energy consumption’ (IEA 2015).

However, it goes well beyond that. The IEA says that ‘ultimately, with greater information flows on how, when and where power is consumed, future energy systems can be designed and operated to more closely match customer’s needs.’ So it can involve more than simply adjusting demand, it can also involve overall system management, including adjustments on the supply side. The term now widely used to describe this general approach is ‘demand-side response’ (DSR), although ‘demand-side management’ (DSM) is still also widely used (see box 4.4).

Box 4.4. Demand side response.

DSR has been defined as ‘a wide range of actions which can be taken at the customer side of the electricity meter in response to particular conditions within the electricity system (such as peak period network congestion or high prices)’ (Torriti 2016). However, this definition may be too restrictive, since, as we will see, in practice, some DSR/smart grid approaches can involve adjustments on the supply side, responding to demand signals from consumers.

A review of the potential for demand-side response in the UK electricity sector to 2035 by Frontier Economics said that there are a variety of uses for DSR, both on very short timescales (such as for frequency variation/ support) and for longer periods (as in the capacity market, to ensure peak demand can be met). At the same time, by reducing peaks on the transmission and distribution networks, DSR can reduce reinforcement costs and balancing charges and thus the costs faced by utilities and customers.

The report notes that, in fact, most DSR capacity in the UK (about 5 GW according to National Grid) is not currently provided by consumer response, but by distributed generation (smaller-scale conventional, CHP and renewable plants operating flexibly at the local level). It adds that, depending on the future design of market rules, this may persist and expand (to maybe 9 GW by 2035).

The report says that the flexibility this supply-side response provides is likely to be of a greater scale than any individual form of demand-side load shifting (managed interim load disconnection at peak demand times), whether industrial/commercial or domestic. The advent of smart meters and the possible introduction of time-of-use tariffs might nevertheless allow the latter to expand, but in the case of washing machine use, it was not seen as a very effective option compared with most other types of DSR.

However, the report suggested that the UK domestic picture could change when and if electric vehicles, heat pumps and electric storage are widely adopted. Moreover, grid-linked storage (maybe 7 GW by 2035) and enhanced automated voltage control (a ±5% saving option) might also offer significant smart grid potential for load shifting and reduction, respectively (Frontier Economics 2015).

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