Activating residential demand side response to relieve network congestion

Abstract

The potential for Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) to facilitate future network growth at the lowest costs for customers will come not only from smarter, more flexible network assets, but also from utilising customer flexibility, in the form of demand side response (DSR). To date, dynamic forms of DSR have been used commercially, mainly with Industrial and Commercial (I&C) customers, by the transmission system operator (TSO), and trials have been undertaken by DNOs with I&C, SME and residential customers on projects such as the Customer Led Network Revolution [1] This paper provides initial results from another Northern Powergrid (a UK DNO) project, entitled Activating Community Engagement (ACE) This project is being carried out in partnership with GenGame Ltd, Serious Games International Ltd and Newcastle University. Its aims are to examine both a new recruitment method for engaging domestic customers, and to test the GenGame's effectiveness in delivering residential DSR services to the distribution network not through tariff based incentives, but through the medium of gaming. The project commenced in 2015 and is jointly funded by Northern Powergrid from its network innovation allowance and by Innovate UK. Recruitment commenced in November 2015 and the project runs to the end of 2017. This paper presents preliminary results from a small number of initial trial members detailing the engagement structure and end-user data.