New ‘smart’ venture to help businesses manage energy

A new ’smart’ venture which is expected to help businesses manage and save energy while earning revenue has been launched. Called COdemand, the project aims to provide firms with demand […]

A new ’smart’ venture which is expected to help businesses manage and save energy while earning revenue has been launched.

Called COdemand, the project aims to provide firms with demand response solutions, which helps manage fluctuations in electricity supply and demand on the grid.

Demand response increases the capacity of the grid to cope with peaks and troughs in electricity supply and demand and displaces the need for reserve capacity from fossil-fuel power stations.

The first solution from engineering and construction firm Costain is Open Energi’s new system called ‘Dynamic Demand’ which makes small adjustments in businesses’ energy usage to help balance the grid.

It uses a combination of metering and software technology to convert suitable equipment into revenue-earning ‘smart assets’.

Claire Baker, Costain’s Sustainability Solutions Manager explains: “The solution itself is a technology that can be attached to an asset’s control system and will allow it to be dynamically controlled when the grid is under stress. The grid needs to balance electricity supply and demand since generated power cannot be easily stored. If an event causes an imbalance, then instead of increasing or decreasing the power supplied from a power station we can alter demand.”

She adds “a majority of sites only have half-hourly energy data but Dynamic Demand monitors power consumption on a sub-second basis”.

“This enables us to give our customers a completely new perspective on operational performance and incredible insight from this system”, she told ELN.

Ian Graves, Power Sector Director added the technology creates huge benefits for customers. He told ELN: “Our customers will generate revenue from providing this service to National Grid. Costain will also collect a large amount of energy data which we’ll be able to use to advise customers and help optimise their energy performance.”

Last month a new ‘routemap’ which sets out how smart technologies can give consumers better control over their energy use, support jobs and increase security of supply while saving billions of pounds was published.

Latest Podcast