Demand response will form a “vital part of a secure, affordable and sustainable energy future” and shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a competitive alternative to the delayed Hinkley Point C nuclear project. That is the view of demand response solutions provider Flexitricity, which claimed that large nuclear projects don’t offer the flexibility of DR schemes – which should be explored to compliment the Hinkley project and deliver a “more economical, more secure, and greener” grid. The company has questioned the claims made last week by the union for energy workers GMB, which suggested that demand response schemes were “fanciful nonsense” and called on the National Grid – which is actively investing into demand response – to be stripped of its system operator role.
Edie 6th Sept 2016 read more »
A sudden failure at Spalding Power Station earlier this week led to Edinburgh-based Flexitricity delivering emergency demand response. Just after 3pm on Monday, September 5, Intergen’s 860MW gas-fired station, which provides enough power for around one million homes, stopped generating. At 3.06pm, two minutes after the initial failure, National Grid requested more power from Flexitricity, and the company immediately sent further start instructions to a mixture of standby and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) generators across Britain. Flexitricity’s demand side response network kicked in to respond within a second, reducing demand at its network of industrial partners to cope with the initial shortfall in supply.
Scottish Energy News 7th Sept 2016 read more »