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Distributed Energy and Demand Side Management

• Overview
• Distributed Energy
• Demand Side Management

Clean, green local energy solutions to reduce greenhouse emissions and speed the transition to a hydrogen economy.

Microturbines are examples of onsite
small-scale power generators

Overview
One of our most challenging research goals is to demonstrate how to deliver better value to electricity consumers - both domestic and industrial - while increasing energy efficiency and reducing the production of greenhouse gases.

Distributed Energy and Demand-side Resources are avenues to achieving these critical targets. Demand-side Resources, in particular, could be worth up to $1 billion per year to the National Electricity Market while helping to keep the lights on during extreme events.

A more cost-effective way to design the electricity network would be to reduce demand at peak times by switching off non-essential load, thus creating a demand response.

Distributed Energy

Distributed energy - the decentralised generation and use of energy - aims to use the electricity as close as possible to the site of its production. It offers scope for driving new, efficient, small-scale generation technologies into commercial reality. These technologies - such as photovoltaics, microturbines, engines and fuel cells - could potentially reduce costs if they are mass produced.

This makes them ideal for reducing consumption peaks. Many of these new technologies also offer low greenhouse emissions, raising the hope of capturing financial returns from carbon credits.

On-site advantages

Gas-fired distributed generation offers many advantages including:

• using waste heat at the site (co-generation) to increase fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
• deferring network upgrades, thereby saving on infrastructure costs;
• supplying electricity when the grid is unavailable; and
• providing infrastructure for a hydrogen economy.

Waste heat from distributed generation can be captured with heat exchangers for hot water production, absorption chillers for air-conditioning, desiccants for dehumidification and Rankine cycle for additional electricity generation.

Our waste heat utilisation technology has been successfully commercialised in TrigenAir, a new cogeneration air-conditioning system. Now installed at Sydney 's Hornsby City Council Central Library, TrigenAir produces electricity for on-site use or grid export and is a cost-effective alternative to conventional electric air-conditioning systems.

Demand-side Management

The Dilemma

In Australia, electricity is a seller's market: electricity suppliers set the price and electricity consumers accept that price without altering their consumption behaviour. Our work aims to more closely align demand with supply. The lack of economical electricity storage and the lack of cost reflective electricity prices, prevent consumers from tailoring their demands to market prices. In short, consumers must use the electricity when they buy it and they have little time to respond to price fluctuations. As well, the regulatory environment offers "perverse incentives" that discourage efficiency and reward investment in more infrastructure.

Our research is promoting a movement towards appropriate technologies that serve both the demand side (for customers) as well as the supply side of the National Electricity Market.

In the current National Electricity Market, the installed generation capacity and distribution network must be designed to supply electricity for extreme events, such as heat waves. This results in significant under-use of the installed infrastructure during non-peak hours.

Meeting the peaks

A more cost-effective way to design the electricity network would be to reduce demand at peak times by switching off non-essential load, thus creating a demand response. This would allow overall electricity consumption to grow without exceeding the peak rating of the network and triggering the need for expensive network upgrades.

A large variety of Demand-side Resources - physical assets and applications - can be switched on or off to reduce electricity demand from the grid. As well, there are management systems for controlling and automating this "asset switching".

Demand-side Resources

Some common demand-side response opportunities are:

Pumps and compressors - Often pumping could be delayed to minimise demand at peak prices. Examples include sewage treatment and water storage.

Batch processes - Many industrial plants process product in batches (eg wineries, kilns, smelters, quarries etc).These processes could be scheduled to avoid peak demand periods.

Chillers for cool stores and large buildings - Air-conditioning and refrigeration applications generally involve cooling the building or storage room to a set temperature at which point the refrigeration system turns off. This cycling can be controlled to minimise demand and peak prices. Building air-conditioning is a significant fraction of peak summer demand.

Energy efficiency and power factor correction.

Efficient lighting, variable speed drives, and solar hot water systems are some of the many technologies that can reduce peak consumption.

Distributed generation.

Distributed generation such as standby generators can be started up to provide power so that less demand is required from the grid We are part of a multinational team developing an intelligent, communicating software/hardware platform for controlling large numbers of these small distributed energy resources. The research aims to harness the disparate elements of the electricity system to improve overall system security, peak demand management, reduced electricity costs and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Demand-side Management on trial

In conjunction with the Energy Users' Association, we trialled an innovative, off-market Demand-side Management facility. This approach has recently been supported by the Ministerial Council of Energy. Our four-week bidding program involving 120 megawatts uncovered what the value of Demandside Resources were to the industry and showed that the approach was viable.

The results were significant - showing that Demandside Resources could be worth up to $1 billion per year to the National Electricity Market for a relatively small investment in coordination. Nine large customers, three distributors and three retailers participated in our landmark project. Among the key findings was that the Demand-side Resource model offered attractive incentives to not use power at peak demand periods - up to $1000 per megawatt hour of "negative demand".

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