ECCC and National Grid security of supply hearing

Following this morning’s Energy and Climate Change Committee hearing to question National Grid about the security of the UK’s energy supply, Chris Kimmett, commercial manager at Open Energi, said: “Today’s Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECCC) hearing to examine National Grid capability to keep the lights on reinforced the need for smart demand side response technology to help balance the energy system, averting the need for expensive emergency measures and keeping costs as low as possible for consumers.

“As National Grid’s Cordi O’Hara highlighted, demand side response does not mean asking factories to power down. Rather, smart DSR technology means businesses now have the intelligence and capabilities to invisibly manage their energy loads without any impact on commercial operations, but with significant impact on Grid’s ability to balance supply and demand.

“National Grid’s recently launched Power Responsive campaign recognises that if we can harness more intelligent use of electricity, we can reduce the need to build generation, lowering system balancing costs and carbon emissions in the process.

“As the capacity margin narrows and the market shifts away from large-scale thermal plant towards distributed renewable generation, demand response is able to meet the new system dynamics at significantly lower cost than other technologies currently available to National Grid. The capital cost of building a new peaking power station can be up to £5m per MW; pumped storage hydro £2m per MW and battery systems in the region of £0.5m-£1.8m per MW. A MW of demand response, on the other hand, costs around £200,000 to aggregate.”