FlexTECC: Flexible Timing of Energy Consumption in Communities

To meet national greenhouse gas emissions targets and ensure our energy security, our energy system needs to undergo a radical transformation. We need to enhance the energy efficiency of the buildings stock, invent new methods to secure low carbon power, and develop ways of providing low carbon heat. Further, incorporating demand flexibility, where homes and workplaces modify their consumption at opportune moments, can reduce overall energy demand, increase the efficiency of grid operations, minimise the use of high carbon generators and increase the uptake of renewable energy sources. The optimal use of demand response can contribute 40 billion pounds in efficiency savings to the electricity grid. This potential has yet to be achieved, however, as it requires a re-envisioning of the energy system and new developments in building system intelligence.

This innovation fellowship aims to jump start this transformation by developing new techniques to enable buildings to operate efficiently and provide services to the broader energy system. The FlexTECC control strategy will use a decentralised model predictive control framework to imbue buildings with the capability to minimise their own energy consumption but also offer their flexibility to an aggregator that can maximise the collective revenue. The decentralised approach is needed to minimise the problem complexity, provide autonomy to individual buildings and to enable a liberalised flexibility market. To realise the FlexTECC control strategy, three challenges must be overcome.

The first is the challenge of perspective. Small energy consumers, such as homes and work places, are not perceived as capable of providing balancing services to the grid, due to their small size. Therefore control algorithms to supervise the collective actions of building energy systems under this paradigm do not exist, and need to be developed. The second challenge is that of implementation. The easiest pathway to ensure widespread use of the FlexTECC strategy is to develop its intelligence with existing hardware and communication protocols. Through collaboration with a nationally recognised building controls company, the FlexTECC controller architecture will be developed and experimentally validated using a large commercially operated building and two of the Loughborough University test homes. The third challenge is that of market potential. Different communities will result in different aggregations of building demands and therefore different flexibility offerings. Further, those offerings will garner different revenue potential depending on which market or markets are leveraged. To overcome this challenge a series of simulation studies will be undertaken to understand the revenue potential from different types of communities participating in various energy markets.

The three-year fellowship will result in a tested and experimentally validated control algorithm that can minimise the energy consumption of an individual building but also provide energy services to the grid. Further, the market potential will also be assessed, providing knowledge to future aggregators on how to select buildings and energy markets that will maximise the overall revenue. The new field of decentralised control of urban energy systems, required to achieve these aims, will be brought to the forefront through an academic summit. Regulatory hurdles preventing the full implementation of flexible systems will be highlighted through an industry focused workshop on Flexible Cities. This robust research and engagement plan will lead to high impact research outcomes and begin the dynamic transformation of our energy system.

The FlexTECC control scheme will allow homes and workplaces to minimise their energy consumption as well as provide energy services to the grid. The development and use of intelligent autonomous controllers will unlock significant demand response potential by enable buildings to proactively participate in energy markets. The proposed research will have a large impact on the entire electricity chain from end user to regulator. Active market participation by small energy consumers does not yet exist therefore successful implementation and demonstration of such a technology will open doors for new technologies, new services, and new regulations.

The most immediate beneficiary of the Fellowship outcomes will be TREND Controls. The FlexTECC control strategy will be implemented, tested, and experimentally validated using their current building energy management systems (BMS) and controllers. This will allow them to increase their technical offerings to include flexibility services. These benefits extend to other BMS and smart home thermostat manufacturers. The additional revenue gained from providing flexibility services will reduce the payback time for the device itself increasing the controller's value proposition. With lower costs, the systems will be attractive to more customers increasing the sales of these products.

With the flexibility of homes and workplaces now unlocked, there will be a need for a flexibility broker, a role currently taken up by energy service providers (ESCO). While the work undergone for the FlexTECC fellowship will demonstrate the ability of small energy consumers to provide services to the grid, there are still many market structures under which this flexibility can be exploited. Aggregators, most often ESCOs, will still need to handle the arrangements with the network operator and aid in developing competitive bids. As each energy consumer will be able to contribute their flexibility to any ESCO, a competitive market will grow to manage flexibility assets.

Lastly the end user of the energy services will benefit as well. The FlexTECC control strategy will directly enable small energy consumers to save on their energy bills and to actively participate in the energy market. By enabling the consumer to sell their flexibility, the consumer has more control over how their energy assets are being used. Further, all electricity consumers will benefit from enabling small energy consumers to actively provide demand response. Studies have shown that if the flexibility potential of workplaces and homes is used to provided services to the grid, even with the payments made to incentivise participation, billions of pounds could be saved whilst meeting climate change targets. Therefore, the cost of electricity and the carbon intensity of electricity will reduce for every electricity consumer.