Load management at home: advantages and drawbacks of some ‘active demand side' options

The Supergen HiDEF (Highly Distributed Energy Future) project explores possibilities for decentralising five features of energy systems: resources, control, network infrastructure, participation and policy. This paper addresses issues of decentralised resources and participation (markets and commercial arrangements). It outlines some practicalities of an ‘active demand side’, supported by a brief overview of social and behavioural aspects of electricity use. Examples are derived from the international literature on behavioural aspects of energy use and residential load management programmes. Four potential active demand options are analysed in outline, in relation to customer involvement and likely enabling technologies. They are: overall demand reduction, static tariffs for peak reduction, dynamic tariffs for load management with variable supply, and continuous load-balancing through dynamic demand. Each of these can offer something to the utility; but what might it offer the customer, and what issues might it raise? The paper proposes development of a framework for evaluating ‘active demand’ options in terms of what they offer to small-scale end-users, to assist with planning for low-carbon energy transitions.