@jamespa 

To me demand management is an alternative to infrastructure investment, and in principle a sensible one at that.  Projecting forwards to when the problem manifest.

It's kicking the privatisation can a bit further down the road. Like all the other infrastructure in this country we are paying for the years of lack of investment and sheer neglect that funded shareholders. 

Grids throughout Europe have varying degrees of catch-up to organise but Britain's really is the pits thus now we have to rebrand 'rationing' as 'demand management' and hope no one notices.  🤦🏻‍♀️

The levels of (quiet) panic among policy-makers are extraordinary while many of the 'solutions' come from the plasters-over-measles school of engineering. With incredible levels of incoherence.  

The Nordic countries have been mapping their route forward for 30 years. They don't blink at stiff regulation and state control where necessary, they fund research and they have worked very hard at building consumer clarity and confidence.  We're all mouth and trousers and we've got those on back-to-front. The consumer pays with minimal protection. 

@transparent

a mechanism for consumers to opt-in; whereby they receive financial compensation when their heat-pump gets turned off

If you turned my heat pump off for 3 or 4 hours during a winter evening I'd be shivering under a duvet. (I wouldn't, I'd light the log burner but I'm lucky to have one). My house is not only leaky but like many other houses has floating walls and minimal thermal mass. 

Once again, those with the least will have the worst. Those with income/batteries/solar won't need the (likely) paltry payments for having their electrical power input choked. Those at the bottom of the pile won't be able to say no. 

The locational or zonal pricing idea has possibilities if it incentivises local grids and storage but there's so many competing financial interests it's really hard to get any clarity and the money involved is eye watering. We paid multi-millions to NOT use Scotland's wind energy the other week because of our lack of capacity and this is a frequent situation. The Price is Wrong!

Posted by: @lucia

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@jamespa 

To me demand management is an alternative to infrastructure investment, and in principle a sensible one at that.  Projecting forwards to when the problem manifest.

It's kicking the privatisation can a bit further down the road. Like all the other infrastructure in this country we are paying for the years of lack of investment and sheer neglect that funded shareholders. 

I completely agree we are paying for underinvestment in infrastructure (arguably due to the effects of privatisation) although electrification drives a new level of requirement which previously has not been necessary.  But like it or not (personally I don't), underinvestment is what UK voters more or less consistently vote for and what much of our media consistently campaigns for.  As a nation we appear to have a 'something for nothing' mentality and want Scandinavian level public services (whether privatised or not) for American level taxes.  I suspect its a hang over from the empire when something for nothing was indeed possible, so long as you ignored the horrors we were imposing on others.  

That said, demand management remains IMHO sensible.  There is little point in engineering our infrastructure for peak demand when, with some financial incentives and very little inconvenience, that demand can be sensibly managed down.  Its not just a matter of cost, we are already hearing the drumbeat of moaning (from the sector of the media I refer to above) about pylons in the countryside and that the roll out of heat pumps will (apparently) cause social instability.  Infrastructure demand management is anyway nothing new, Economy 7 has been around for decades, rail peak at times of peak demand...

Posted by: @lucia

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If you turned my heat pump off for 3 or 4 hours during a winter evening I'd be shivering under a duvet. (I wouldn't, I'd light the log burner but I'm lucky to have one). My house is not only leaky but like many other houses has floating walls and minimal thermal mass. 

Once again, those with the least will have the worst. Those with income/batteries/solar won't need the (likely) paltry payments for having their electrical power input choked. Those at the bottom of the pile won't be able to say no. 

Demand management can take several forms and can, just like Economy 7, be optional.  Houses with low thermal mass are not particularly suited to demand management of their heating, but many houses do have a high thermal mass and we are all going to have electric cars in the fullness of time which represent more flexible storage.  There isn't, IMHO, a one size fits all solution, but that's not a valid reason to dismiss it entirely.  Of course, like any 'policy' it needs to be crafted to take account the variety of social and other circumstances.  Failing to plan, including incorporating demand management if necessary, isn't a solution, in countries where this has happened, and thus do not have a grid as reliable as ours, the better off resort to generators and the poorer freeze or boil.

When I responded that that DESNZ consultation on Delivering Smart and Secure Electricity System, my first observation about the DSR Proposals was that I wouldn't have started by using Heat Pumps as an example of why we need to suppress Peak Demand.

Since the foundational concept of a heat pump is that it should operate continuously, it shouldn't be viewed as a contributor to demand peaks.

 

Posted by: @jamespa

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Unfortunately few of our politicians are engineers/scientists and there has been a consistent push for several decades to dumb down/outsource the functions of the Civil Service in the name of efficiency/tax cutting, so I doubt that we have much capacity for regulation without the 'support' of the industry.

It's therefore of greater concern when the regulatory framework to 'control' the future grid is being proposed by civil servants with too little understanding of the underlying science!

 

Ofgem indicates that it's aware of the problem.

In last month's consultation on (Lack of) Innovation in the retail market, they make the following observation in the Appendix:

And in my Submission, I've therefore made the following comment

That may not have been well received!

 

Posted by: @jamespa

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Although building a power station is difficult, it's surely easier than upgrading the vast distances of local cable and transformers.  Maybe I'm wrong, but if not then it's entirely possible that the grid has excess offers of connection, but there's still a capacity problem.

That is indeed the case.

The £60bn Great Grid Upgrade announced by National Grid doesn't address the "last mile".

By far the most extensive cabling layer on the electricity grid is at the 11kV level which supplies our Local Substations.
But to upgrade that is beyond the financial capability of Britain.
We're talking HS2 on steroids.

The more obvious solution to reduce Demand Peaks whilst simultaneously avoiding the need to increase grid capacity is to time-slice our use of the network.

We can achieve that by installing storage batteries in the home.

The storage needs to be on the consumer-side of the Smart Meter, rather than attached to the 11kV grid.
Commercial grid-tied batteries have no effect on reducing peak demand.
And I'm going to tag @ianmk13  here because this point is of interest to him due to a local issue.

 

My 'hypothesis' is that it would cost far less to install domestic storage batteries than it would to:

• upgrade the grid to cope with demand-peaks
• build the DSR software system to facilitate heat-pumps being turned off remotely by DSR-Agents
• create the regulatory structure to manage the future grid and its (cyber) security

 

But the dearth of scientific understanding amongst civil servants and ministers means that they probably haven't seen that possibility.

Posted by: @transparent

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Since the underlying concept of a heat pump is that it should operate continuously, it shouldn't be viewed as a contributor to demand peaks.

 

No but the house is a storage mechanism which a heat pump can access.  All other things being equal using existing storage mechanisms is better than creating new ones.  I dont know the timescales of the peaks which need to be covered, my assumption is that there are 9in the time domain) macro peaks (eg from 4-7pm) but perhaps also micro-peaks (during the interval in the cup final). Houses are easily capable of riding out the micro peaks if they are indeed a problem.

Posted by: @transparent

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The more obvious solution to reduce Demand Peaks whilst simultaneously avoiding the need to increase grid capacity is to time-slice our use of the network.

We can achieve that by installing storage batteries in the home.

I agree.  The only question is how.  To me V2G is the obvious prime mechanism as it reuses batteries we already have, subject of course to the batteries themselves being capable (ie not degrading materially if they are used this way).   However doubtless there is a place for dedicated home batteries also.

 

Posted by: @transparent

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My 'hypothesis' is that it would cost far less to install domestic storage batteries than it would to:

• upgrade the grid to cope with demand-peaks
• build the DSR software system to facilitate heat-pumps being turned off remotely by DSR-Agents
• create the regulatory structure to manage the future grid and its (cyber) security

 

But the dearth of scientific understanding amongst civil servants and ministers means that they probably haven't seen that possibility.

Your hypothesis seems very plausible, particularly if we postulate that V2G will become commonplace.  Are there any figures?

Of course the industry wont want to do this and, as you say, its unlikely we have civil servants and ministers with the scientific understanding required to challenge a strong view advocated by the industry.  As I observe upthread this is, IMHO, the result of 40+ years of underinvestment in/outsourcing of the Civil service and a naive, ideology-driven idea that the private sector will miraculously act in the interests of the nation rather than the interests of the foreign shareholders.  However, like it on not, that's what the UK public voted for and that's what we, and the rest of the UK public, have to live with. 

I should probably add that I am not, and never have been, a Civil Servant but I did spend 14 years as a Local Government officer (following 30 years in engineering) and so have experienced first hand the extent to which politicians who, after all, are not elected for their technical skills, are reliant on the technical skills of officers to inform their decisions.  This means that the officers/civil servants need to be more capable than the industry figures by whom they are inevitably lobbied, if truly independent advice is to be given.  The fundamental skill is enough knowledge to be able to understand the technical matters, and enough intellect (and guts) to be able to use that understanding rigorously to challenge those with vested interests who will otherwise try to pull wool over eyes with technical gobbledegook, or simply asserting that they know best.  Consultation, much beloved of Government at all levels, is essential but absolutely no substitute for in-house critical analysis in with the sole objective of understanding what is in the public interest.

 

Posted by: @transparent

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And I'm going to tag @ianmk13  here because this point is of interest to him due to a local issue.

Yes, I'm reading 😉 
I'm very surprised by the assertion that 34% of people claim they know a fair amount about low carbon heating systems.  I'm also very sceptical of the relevant present Government's targets considering they have, so far, only demonstrated their expertise with a stick and not kept any of the carrots.  A large proprtion of the electorate will be excluded from this 'game' by costs alone.
@transparent Why do commercial LV grid-tied batteries not reduce peak loading on the grid? I'm having difficulty seeing a business case for such a system which would only serve one neighbourhood sub-station.  It would be quite an investment to share across a relatively small number of households.  The clear benefit to them would be difficult to justify when, presumably, they would ultimately be the people paying for it.
The electricity distribution network has coped this far with the help of 'diversity' of demand. Demand is also being managed by the DNO in the form of approval of new connections, installation of micro-generation, energy storage, heat pump and service fuse rating changes. Is the 'Big Brother' DSR proposal necessary? It seems to be overly complex andintroduce a huge potential sercurity risk. Can't ToU tariffs achieve the same outcome?
 

Posted by: @ianmk13

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Can't ToU tariffs achieve the same outcome?

 

That would be my question too.  Of course the database could (presumably) be used in conjunction with a ToU tariff/opt in.  Without further detail its difficult to comment.

Is the database etc just a piece of infrastructure rather than an end solution?  ToU tarrifs of course already exist based on smart (or indeed stupid) meters, but Im guessing that the infrastructure isnt in place to aggregate the effect of the demand interventions, so true management is not possible other than on a piecemeal basis by individual retailers (which is I suspect cost based not capacity based).  Once you start to think about the problem, its actually complex and multi-layered, and my suspicion is that not the layers are not equally developed.  Thats of course unless you believe that the grid can be managed on pricing alone, which seems improbable.

Posted by: @ianmk13

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Why do commercial LV grid-tied batteries not reduce peak loading on the grid?

The demand from each house is dictated by the actions of its occupants.

If they're on a ToU Tariff, then the household might alter their demand according to the price in each Half-Hour period.
That, in turn, would be reflected by consumption data held by their Smart Meter... but only in arrears.

A commercial storage battery has no access to that data anyway.
Even the DNO is only permitted to access a sanitised amalgamation of Smart Meter data.
They use that to assess the loading on the local substation transformer

A company wishing to connect a 200A/800kWh 3ph Storage Battery to a local substation may make all sorts of claims about 'supporting the local grid'.
But without measuring the local 11kV characteristics, they'll have no idea how to optimise the charge / discharge cycle.

Their intention is make money, rather than assist the grid constraints in the area.
They'll be buying electricity on the (national) wholesale market when it's cheap in order to recharge their Battery Electricity Supply System (BESS),
and then exporting it when they can receive the highest profit.

That means the BESS unit(s) must send the electricity across the Distribution Grid twice.

The local householders still make the same demand on the Grid.
It is of no consequence that a portion of that energy has been stored in a BESS unit somewhere close by.

 

Posted by: @transparent

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Posted by: @ianmk13

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Why do commercial LV grid-tied batteries not reduce peak loading on the grid?

The demand from each house is dictated by the actions of its occupants.

If they're on a ToU Tariff, then the household might alter their demand according to the price in each Half-Hour period.
That, in turn, would be reflected by consumption data held by their Smart Meter... but only in arrears.

A commercial storage battery has no access to that data anyway.
Even the DNO is only permitted to access a sanitised amalgamation of Smart Meter data.
They use that to assess the loading on the local substation transformer

A company wishing to connect a 200A/800kWh 3ph Storage Battery to a local substation may make all sorts of claims about 'supporting the local grid'.
But without measuring the local 11kV characteristics, they'll have no idea how to optimise the charge / discharge cycle.

Their intention is make money, rather than assist the grid constraints in the area.
They'll be buying electricity on the (national) wholesale market when it's cheap in order to recharge their Battery Electricity Supply System (BESS),
and then exporting it when they can receive the highest profit.

That means the BESS unit(s) must send the electricity across the Distribution Grid twice.

The local householders still make the same demand on the Grid.
It is of no consequence that a portion of that energy has been stored in a BESS unit somewhere close by.

 

Thanks.  The profit motive defeats us again.  

Is this beginning to feel like an argument for a nationalised system managed in the interests of the nation?  😀  

 

Posted by: @jamespa

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To me V2G is the obvious prime mechanism as it reuses batteries we already have, subject of course to the batteries themselves being capable (ie not degrading materially if they are used this way).   However doubtless there is a place for dedicated home batteries also.

I think V2G is a potential ingredient.
However the V2G Trial undertaken by Kaluza/OVO 4 years ago could only use Nissen Leaf cars because they have a ChaDEMO connector.
We don't yet have a V2G Charger which can operate with CSS connectors because they can't offer DC output.

The Cenex Report of that V2G Trial overlooked all the losses.
DNOs had to limit the charge/discharge levels for some of the trial sites due to excessive phase-imbalances and harmonics.

The great majority of EVs use LiMNC batteries.
Those have a lifetime far shorter than LiFePO4 cells.
So EV owners will be impacted greatly if they use the EV battery to supply the home.

That's why vehicle finance companies usually forbid the use of an EV with a V2G charger.

V2G is only an option if you own the car outright.

 

Yes @jamespa the entirety of the DESNZ and Ofgem innovation and regulatory strategies are based on attracting commercial companies to get involved.
They have naff all understanding of how to achieve Net Zero without a profit motive.

That's why the 'Consumer Transformation' component in the Future Energy Scenarios is so important.
We can do what Government fails to achieve.

 

Incorrect implementation of energy-technologies within the supply system can actually do more harm than good.

I think it's time for a story:

 

As someone who is considering buying an EV within a few years, I would much prefer to invest in one which supports V2H and V2G given that the vehicle is likely to spend much of its time parked outside my house. I've always understood that most of the wear on the lithium chemistry is at the ends of the charge range and charging/discharging in the middle of the range doesn't cause much wear. Forward scheduling of likely vehicle usage could enable software to manage both the charging and some export while ensuring there's plenty of juice in the battery ready for the next journey.
On the wider issue of getting surplus generation in Scotland to the demand centres in England, I feel that there's been insufficient fending off of the NIMBYs in favour of the national interest. Undersea cables are a much more expensive (thus tying up more available capital) and vulnerable way to move power than overground powerlines which I find tend to become part of the scenery once the metal is no longer shiny.
I've also been wondering for some years why the government of the day couldn't sort out the funding/payment mechanisms needed to get one or more of the big Scottish pump-storage schemes built and ready to absorb the surplus wind generation ready for release when there's a calm period.

Posted by: @transparent

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They'll be buying electricity on the (national) wholesale market when it's cheap in order to recharge their Battery Electricity Supply System (BESS),and then exporting it when they can receive the highest profit.

And presumably reselling it on the wholesale market. Do we know how this energy is metered?Won't riding on the back of a residential sub-station adversely affect the availability of import/export capacity for the local residents? If a 200kW inverter is charging the 800kWh battery while energy is cheap won't it be competing for electrons with those residents trying to charge their household batteries and EVs at a cheap rate? What about those who have not yet been able to afford their EV but will soon be compelled to? Will there be any capacity left in the sub-station for them?