Dispatchable Air Conditioning (DAC)

Incumbent methods of managing supply and demand of electricity in India are being disrupted by increased demand driven by economic and population growth, growth in connected intermittent generation driven by the low carbon transition and by the electrification of transport driven in part by urban air pollution concerns. It is widely acknowledged that new approaches are required to assist grid management if policy objectives associated with security of supply, decarbonisation and air quality are to be met.

A key driver of demand growth in the residential sector is the uptake of residential air conditioning (AC) systems which has reached 40% in many urban centres. This technology also represents an untapped demand response opportunity; for instance providing c8GW of flexible operating reserve in the US with provision highly cost competitive compared to alternative methods of flexibility provision.

The DAC project develops a novel control system capable of accessing flexibility from existing residential AC systems in India. The system modifies operation of AC systems based on input from a multi-objective, cloud-based control platform using grid property triggers (e.g. voltage, frequency) and time based signals. The controller measures internal temperature in the dwelling to ensure that the accessed AC system flexibility is constrained by found, local thermal comfort requirements. An evidence base for the system approach will be provided by a field trial involving deployment of DAC systems in a 30 dwelling, six month field trial located in Tamil Nadu in Southern India.

The design and commercialisation of the system will be guided by three stakeholder workshops. Output from the first will be used to define control objectives relevant to Indian grid management at both distribution and network level. Output from the second will explore the value that can be created from provision of these services, allowing subsequent development of novel business models that socialise derived value between all stakeholders. These business models will be tempered using output from the third workshop that investigates mitigation approaches for any distributional effects of the technology.

The DAC project will be delivered and managed by an established team who have been collaborating on demand and grid management projects in India for the last three years. They contain experts in social inclusion , thermal comfort, product design, data science, control theory and business development in the sustainability sector and contain a wide network of influencers in Indian energy policy at both a National and State level.