Project Summary
As GB warms due to climate change, uptake of Space Cooling (SC) is expected to increase significantly, leading to increased summer peak demands and greater network load for building comfort alongside the electrification of heat.
However, SC demand is currently poorly accounted for in distribution network planning using limited modelling. Additionally, SC’s potential to provide flexibility has not been considered.
CoolDown will produce tools to enable network operators to understand the impact of SC at a local level. Trials of SC-tailored flexibility products will enable networks to mitigate adverse impacts, reduce network reinforcement requirements and optimise value for customers.
Innovation Justification
CoolDown Beta will develop and trial:
1. Novel DR programme designs for the provision of flexibility services from domestic and commercial SC assets
2. A first of its kind SC demand forecasting tool enabling its inclusion in network planning
CoolDown Alpha was the first GB DNO-led project to explore the impacts of SC growth on distribution networks and how SC flexibility can be unlocked to mitigate potential impacts on network planning.
CoolDown Discovery and Alpha uncovered how poorly understood cooling is among DNOs, FSPs, and customers. The innovative substation-level building modelling methodology developed across previous phases suggests that DFES have vastly underestimated the amount of cooling demand that could be added to the network. In CoolDown Beta, we will enhance this model to produce a forecasting tool that all DNOs can use to better account for SC in future network planning.
While commercial FSPs have some experience in flexing SC assets as part of a wider portfolio, they have never explored the limits of SC DR to lower summer demand peaks. Our engagement with multiple domestic FSPs has shown that they view SC assets as increasingly important but are unsure how to best integrate it into their asset portfolios given its relative nascency. Customer surveys in CoolDown Alpha found large variation in when and how customers use SC. Overall, CoolDown Alpha found that SC assets are used differently to other assets and embedding them into existing markets would risk inefficient flexibility delivery.
CoolDown Beta will trial the four SC DR programmes developed in Alpha to see how SC can optimally integrate into Business-as-Usual (BaU) flexibility portfolios and network services, including at transmission level. Engagement with DESNZ, FSPs, UKRI, and other DNOs has helped challenge and refine CoolDown, confirming the need for a DR demonstrator. With over 80% of customers reporting experiencing overheating during the summer 2022 heatwave, and SC becoming the norm in office and retail spaces, now is the right time to trial DR programme designs.
Through two iterative trial periods, held over successive summers, CoolDown Beta will, for the first time at this scale across GB and Europe, build an evidence base for the bounds of flexibility from SC in domestic and commercial buildings. We will use asset-level monitoring to understand customers’ cooling behaviours more granularly and hold events across a range of temperatures, lengths, frequencies, and payment amounts to understand how these factors impact the level of flexibility achievable. We will explore customer sentiment through regular engagement with participating customers.
CoolDown remains well-suited to the SIF, innovating new flexibility programmes and DFES improvements through demonstrators and iteration. The DR trials and forecasting tool development build on previous CoolDown phases. Without these demonstrators, we risk SC not being properly embedded into network planning and flexibility market design. CoolDown’s iterative trials with both domestic and commercial buildings allow us to develop a plan for transitioning SC assets into a BaU flexibility solution which could be scaled across DNOs alongside the forecasting tool.
The work outlined in CoolDown Beta will take the TRL from 5 to 9, the CRL from 5/6 to 8, and the IRL from level 2 to 8.
CoolDown Alpha also considered the potential for ground source heat pump passive cooling to mitigate SC demand growth. Whilst pilots have successfully delivered savings for individual households, it was unclear how the substantial scale-up required to deliver network benefits comparable to SC DR could be achieved and whether it would be appropriate for DNOs to play a role in this. We have therefore discounted this passive cooling for CoolDown Beta but recommend that it could be further explored elsewhere.
Impacts and Benefits
Current position: Outside CoolDown Alpha, the impacts of SC growth, and its flexibility potential, have not yet been appraised and quantified across GB. As a result, SC demand is not properly accounted for in the DFES and DNO’s network planning.
This could result in DNOs overestimating – resulting in stranded assets and over expenditure on reinforcement – or underestimating – potentially leading to reinforcement of the same substation multiple times, compounding the associated costs of future network reinforcement. Both scenarios will increase network operation costs, which translates into increased electricity bills for GB customers. CoolDown Alpha found that network reinforcement costs could rise by up to £10bn GB-wide from an increased uptake of SC by 2050 across DFES scenarios.
By unlocking SC flexibility from domestic and commercial buildings, CoolDown is expected to deliver the following benefits:
Financial: Future reductions in the cost of operating the network
SC DR is expected to reduce peak demand from building SC, especially for summer peaking substations. This provides extra network capacity, deferring (and potentially avoiding) network reinforcement. CoolDown Alpha found that unlocking this additional capacity could defer the reinforcement of substations by 1-5 years and reduce the number of reinforcements required by up to 7,000 across GB by 2050, depending on the DFES scenario.
Furthermore, increased participation of SC technologies in local flexibility markets will improve these markets’ liquidity, reducing DNO costs of procuring flexibility. This has been included in the CBA, with the flexibility procurement cost assumed to be in line with current BaU flexibility markets pricing which reduces over time.
The CBA completed in CoolDown Alpha has shown benefits of up to £81m GB-wide by 2050 depending on the DFES scenario.
Note: The CBA does not include secondary substation and system level benefits i.e. SC DR contributing to system level balancing through participation in NESO flex markets. Therefore, it represents a conservative estimate. The project team will look to quantify these benefits in the CBA of the Beta phase. An alternative benefit is that SC flexibility can free up network capacity allowing networks to connect new customers, providing further operating cost benefits which will be considered in CoolDown Beta.
Financial: Cost savings per annum on energy bills for consumers
Network operation costs are reflected in customer bills through Distribution Use of System charges. Therefore, savings associated with deferred reinforcement will lead to savings in customer’s electricity bills.
Furthermore, the DR programmes will enable customers with SC to participate more widely in network flexibility services. These programmes will incentivise customers to use their SC assets outside congested, potentially more expensive, times of the day, thereby reducing their overall electricity bills.
Revenues: Improved access to revenues for users of network services
The four SC DR programmes to be trialled in CoolDown Beta will offer revenue opportunities to businesses and households with SC through provision of flexibility services to DNOs. It also opens a new pool of technologies for FSPs to manage and earn flexibility revenues from.
Environmental - carbon reduction – direct CO2 savings per annum
Reducing network reinforcement requirements will allow DNOs to save emissions associated with construction and installation processes. The CoolDown Alpha CBA calculated that, depending on the DFES scenario, up to 1,043tCO2e of reduction GB-wide can be achieved by 2050, giving a benefit of up to £7.5m.
New to market – products, processes and services
The novel CoolDown SC DR programmes will be a new addition to local flexibility market products and FSP business models. During CoolDown Beta, we will trial the shortlisted DR programmes and develop a plan to transition these to BaU.
