Demand response programme to manage peak load in India’s largest city
Tata Power is teaming up with Autogrid to deploy a demand response programme across Mumbai to evaluate and manage peak load demand.
The new Demand Response Management Programme comes from the collaboration between India’s largest integrated power company alongside Virtual Power Plant (VPP) and Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) provider, Autogrid.
The programme aims to engage 55,000 residential consumers and 6,000 large Commercial and Industrial (C&I) customers in the country’s most populous city.
With the programme built on the AutoGrid Flex platform, consumers can earn incentives by choosing to curtail their load in response to signals relayed via text messages and email during times of critical need.
Because India’s predominant source of energy is thermal power, aggregating small adjustments by consumers can eliminate the need for costly and heavy-polluting plants.
The programme aims to achieve at least 75MW of peak capacity reduction within the first half-year of management, scaling up to 200MW by the summer of 2025.
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In addition to the Behavioural Demand Response (BDR) programme, Tata Power will stack on an Automated Demand Response (ADR) programme with direct load control assisted by customer participation with its in-house smart plug platform, EZ Home.
“An AI-enabled, demand energy response system has the potential to empower customers and make them join the energy transition journey. Tata Power is committed to making distributed energy resources mainstream and promoting a culture of hi-tech energy conservation,” said Dr. Praveer Sinha, CEO & managing director, Tata Power.
“India and Tata Power can reach ambitious sustainability goals by leveraging the flexible capacity available by adopting innovative approaches to leverage distributed energy resources,” added Amit Narayan, AutoGrid founder and CEO.
Over the last two decades, India has seen rapid growth in DERs, including solar, smart meters, Electric Vehicles (EVs) and EV charging infrastructure.
The country has a significant opportunity to harness demand-side flexibility, strengthen the grid and advance sustainability, but the lack of a singular, scalable programme has hindered progress in the past.
Additionally, according to Tata Power and AutoGrid, the lack of adequate regulatory approval prevents these resources from being utilised at the incredible scale the Indian market has to offer.
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The two companies’ collaboration started in 2021 with Tata Power Delhi Distribution’s residential customers in Delhi.
Based on the success of this engagement, Tata Power expanded the initiative within the Delhi distribution region in 2022 and AutoGrid is now extending this programme across Tata Power’s distribution territories to include all segments.
