A £28.3m learning and demonstration program, Low Carbon London is using London as a test bed to support a smarter electricity network development.
Demand response seeks to encourage users to consume less energy during peak periods by offering financial incentives, helping power companies efficiently manage the network requirements and understand the potential for demand response to support distribution network constraint management.
Besides legacy DSR, the tests used active network management (ANM) to deliver fully automated triggering based on the real time electricity distribution network operation.
The ANM is designed to enable power companies and utilities make better use of current grid capacity to help integrate energy storage, demand-side management, renewable energy and other controllable resources on the grid.
KiWi Power director and co-founder Ziko Abram said the company is currently collaborating with UK Power Networks on a forthcoming winter trial, besides helping its customers optimize their demand response participation.
”We are also exploring ways that demand side management can help other distribution network operators across the UK manage their networks in a ‘smarter’ way," Abram added.
Low Carbon London program director Michael Clark said, ”We have used a variety of automated and manual dispatch signals, which has provided significant learning to how our distribution network might use demand response and Active Network Management in our business as usual operations."
KiWi Power supplied a total of 47 MWh of demand response to its customers, including hospitals, hotels, water treatment plants, public sector facilities and commercial buildings during the trial.
