Coordination of distributed energy storage and demand side response to offer flexibility in modern energy networks

The costs of energy storage are falling and the deployment of devices is expected to increase rapidly over the next years, with a significant proportion expected to be connected to distribution networks. Whilst a lot of the focus of energy storage is on providing power for fast response to services to maintain network frequency, as the penetration of variable renewables increases, larger scale energy balancing will become more important. Such energy storage and demand side response technology options, including for electrical and thermal energy will in principle give greater system flexibility and reduced costs.

However, the practicalities of providing such system services from a massively-distributed technology base, with a range of performance characteristics, have not been well studied. This PhD will explore distributed energy storage and demand side response combinations. We propose to assess whether combining distributed energy storage technologies and demand side response would lead to a more efficient energy system, and how the value could be captured to maximise the system benefit. This will require research effort to: assess the value of different combinations of technology under different energy system scenarios; develop control systems allowing technologies to be combined; analyse network and technology data across temporal and geographical scales to operate virtual distributed energy storage; consider the regulatory implications of such an approach, and the business models/policies that would allow its commercialisation.