Project Crowdflex results reveal domestic flexibility incentives in the UK
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National Grid ESO’s Crowdflex project has completed its first set of summer trials in the UK, reporting early indications that low payment levels, the timing of demand response events and the notice period of events can all influence the flexibility response from domestic consumers.
During the trials, Crowdflex – a project held by National Grid ESO alongside a consortium of partners including energy suppler OVO and EV company Ohme – evaluated consumer behaviour when incentivised to flexibly adjust energy use or make assets like EVs available to the grid for automated control of when to charge.
The trials tested different recruitment messages and incentive levels to investigate behavioural and technical influences on how consumers can play a larger role in balancing the national electricity system in the future.
Additionally, randomised control trials were implemented as trial designs to identify the flexibility response of domestic consumers, investigating the impact of price sensitivity and fatigue effects of multiple events.
What was found from these initial trials was that low payment levels, timing of events for consumers and the events’ notice periods all influence how consumers on the domestic level partake in flexibility schemes.
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OVO’s utilisation payments
OVO recruited approximately 37,000 customers to conduct utilisation payments trials, investigating customer demand response in a series of demand turn-up, turn-down and mixed response events.
Consumers were encouraged to shift their energy during use into or out of event time windows, using or forgoing using energy intensive devices such as washing machines and dishwashers.
Turn-up events, when consumers were encouraged to shift their use of energy intensive devices such as washing machines into a set time, achieved up to three times greater magnitude of energy shift than conventional turn-down events.
These turn-up events utilised the incentive of ‘discounted electricity’, which in the future could help utilise renewable energy when it is plentiful and avoid curtailment, says National Grid.
According to the ESO, further research will be carried out in this area as it may also have the potential to encourage energy poverty or underrepresented groups to participate in future demand increase events, offering lower cost and greener energy.
Ohme’s availability payments
EV smart charging company Ohme held availability payments trials with approximately 1,300 customers, exploring the extent to which consumers with EVs changed their plug-in behaviour using a variety of incentive levels and their willingness to allow remote dispatch of their EV charger.
Ohme’s customers responded best to the recruitment message which focused on ‘getting paid,’ with non-fiscal messaging achieving a slightly lower recruitment rate.
The trial increased average overnight plug-ins from 30% to 45% and daytime plug-ins from 10% to 18%.
Commenting in a release was David Watson, Ohme CEO: “We believe that domestic customers can have a material impact in providing grid flexibility services, which could save consumers £10 billion per year in energy costs by 2050.”
According to Watson the summer trial results were very encouraging with a high response rate an increased plug-in frequency from participating customers.
“Plugging-in is a key driver of flexibility, so we focused on what incentives would be required to deliver sustained behaviour change.
“Additionally, it was great to be able to reward our customers for plugging-in more, providing further benefits for drivers making the switch to an electric vehicle. We’re looking forward to the next phase in the upcoming winter trial.”
Next steps
Another area of research being explored by CrowdFlex is how the national electricity system can coordinate with distribution networks to help manage thermal constraints.
According to the ESO, there are currently a number of different use cases reflecting a range of geographical challenges that could potentially be assisted with flexibility.
Said ESO CrowdFlex project lead, Sanna Atherton: “It’s exciting to see the first signs of the potential for domestic flexibility to help reliably manage the grid.
“CrowdFlex is developing this deeper understanding of consumer flexibility and forecasting and will start to establish domestic flexibility as a predictable resource for the control room, also helping consumers reduce their energy costs and another step towards decarbonisation of the energy system.”
Customer surveys of those who took part in Crowdflex are currently underway, as well as plans for the project’s next phase – the winter trials, consisting of 200 events with larger cohorts of customers.
Up to 20,000 customers will partake in the the availability plug-in events and potentially over 100,000 for the utilisation events.
National Grid ESO adds that the summer results are being used to refine the winter trials’ design, with the ambition to understand more about wider domestic customers archetypes and their technical capabilities, motivations and knowledge, and to increase understanding of detected behaviours.
Project Crowdflex is now in its two-and-a-half-year beta phase.
The project was awarded funding through Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund, which is managed in partnership with Innovate UK.
The project is being delivered by a consortium of partners: OVO, Ohme, Centre for Net Zero, ERM, AWS, National Grid Electricity Distribution and Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks.
The ESO is also being supported by Smart Grid Consultancy Ltd, CGI, Smith Institute and Centre for Sustainable Energy.
