Community Energy Action
| Duration | Oct 2012 - May 2014 |
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Project Description
Community Energy Action looked at how to effectively communicate with a range of communities to implement demand side response. Via five local energy charity groups we selected ten communities from backgrounds representative of customers connected to our network. Multiple interventions were trialled, to asses which worked most effectively with which type of community. This allowed us to identify which key characteristics are present in the most successful communities to aid future community selection of this sort of approach.
This project gave the DNO a portfolio of methods and interventions to use with communities who are willing to change their demand curve. In certain scenarios it could even be an alternative to conventional network reinforcement.
For the charity partners it has allowed them to exhibit their own engagement strategies and hone them to individual communities. Additionally communities get the satisfaction of reducing bills and earning incentives by simply modifying their behaviour.
Areas of Work
The charity groups led the customer engagement and implemented various interventions. Findings from how well the interventions ran were shared across the charities and the most successful tried in multiple communities. Using a variable sampling rate minute by minute data was collected via GPRS to give communities as close to live data as possible- the communities were given access to this data via an on line portal. They were able to view the local distribution substation demand in comparison to an incentivised target level, encouraging them to reduce their peak demand along with overall consumption.