As a key player in the industry’s efforts to scale up the flexibility capabilities of the electricity system, Think Smartgrids sheds light, through this report, on the technical and organizational challenges related to developing demand response capabilities in commercial buildings, directly linked to the needs of the electricity system.
The full report will be available soon. Follow Think Smartgrids on LinkedIn!
Flexibility, or the need to adjust national electricity production or consumption to maintain balance at all times, has always existed. However, the low-carbon and cheaper electricity generated in the afternoon and evening by growing renewable energy capacity offers new optimization opportunities for the benefit of both the system and consumers.
As highlighted in the electricity consumption flexibility barometer published today by RTE, ENEDIS, TSG, GIMELEC, and IGNES, the issue of consumption flexibility has historically focused on “explicit” demand response for real-time grid balancing. It is now essential to concentrate on scaling up flexibility capacity for everyday use, shifting, and modulating consumption every day of the year, not just during annual peak periods.
This scheduling of energy use can be done manually every day, but it can primarily be done via equipment for controlling and optimizing electrical usage, namely Building Management Systems (BACS), which are mandatory in large commercial buildings under the BACS decree.
However, to date, numerous technical and organizational obstacles remain to harnessing the potential for flexibility in commercial buildings:
- Control equipment that is rarely connected and not always capable of interpreting and adapting its instructions to signals sent by stakeholders in the electrical system (energy suppliers, aggregators, network operators);
- Non-standardized flexibility signals from these same stakeholders;
- Responsibilities that still need to be defined among stakeholders, and significant training and awareness-raising challenges.
In conclusion, to enable scaling up, Think Smartgrids has therefore focused, through this report, on defining the technical prerequisites for communication between energy use control equipment and the electrical system.
The association therefore recommends developing control equipment capable of receiving and interpreting signals from the following three categories of stakeholders:
- Electricity suppliers (signal and control via tariffs)
- Demand response operators (signal and control via modulation orders, either downward or upward)
- Network operators.
To identify equipment meeting these requirements, Think Smartgrids, in partnership with the real estate sector, is launching Flex Ready: a collective brand to identify control solutions capable of optimizing energy consumption in commercial buildings, in connection with the electrical grid.
To learn more, download the summary of the Think Smartgrids white paper: LIEN
Finally, for more context on the evolution of scaling up flexibility, download the “Consumption Flexibility Barometer”: LIEN
