The ability of consumers to adjust their electricity demand in response to price signals and system operator requirements has a fundamental role to play in the energy transition
Elevate your listening experience, try our app - iOS / Android Financial incentives and a regulatory framework that values demand-side flexibility assets are essential to limiting investments in the grid and backup generation USE THE FLEX Wholesale power prices rise and fall during the day but end users do not have similarly flexible tariffs so cannot take advantage of the lower prices BREAK THE HABIT Demand flexibility can reduce the need for grid investments but utilities have long been supported in making capital expenditures KEY QUOTE The market rules and regulations are still very much oriented to central power generation and consumers being passive bill takers When the UK’s National Grid ...
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A fully renewable energy future is within reach and storage is definitely required, but it is a combination of measures that will truly make it possible, argues Johan Söderbom of EIT InnoEnergy
The European Union’s “Energy Efficiency First Principle” was designed to maximise the potential of energy sources and increase investor appetite but it has struggled to jump from principle to practice. But new rules and a shift in geopolitics look set to propel the efficiency maxim to top billing
Grids need to accommodate a host of new and variable low-carbon assets, but who should manage how they operate and what they get paid remains a thought exercise despite the changes already happening
The expansion of distributed energy resources has precipitated the rise of advanced software platforms to manage them. Virtual power plants and distributed energy resource management systems can help integrate renewables and low-carbon assets more smoothly while allowing value from the flexibility that resources like rooftop solar, battery storage, electric vehicles and heat pumps can also provide to be extracted
The electricity sector has come a long way since many of the rules that govern it were written. Distributed energy resources, battery storage and electric vehicles had not yet appeared on the scene when the regulations and frameworks that dictate how power is produced, transmitted and consumed were put in place