The ground breaking Demand Flexiblity Service (DFS) allowed over 1.6 million households and businesses the opportunity to participate in a national flexibility service and be rewarded for the first time. Given the speed that the sevice was set up and the implications for future flexibility services this project will explore how consumers participated in DFS and crucially the barriers to participation, through 2 phases of work.  

1. A social research element (diaries, opinion poll, survey and interviews).
2. Using consenting consumer data, smart meter data will be analysed and linked to the social research.  

The findings of this work should inform future iterations of DFS, DSO flexibility services and flexibility service provider offers (suppliers and aggregators). 

Benefits

The potential revenue streams of domestic flexibility through existing energy markets and flexibility services are as follows:  

• Redispatch avoidance - £105/kW/yr (Element Energy analysis based on FES 2021),
• Wholesale arbitrage - £85/kW/yr (daily 4h price spread based on 2021 data),
• DNO network reinforcement - £64/kW/yr (Element Energy analysis),
• Balancing Mechanism - £47/kW/yr (Element Energy analysis),
• TSO reinforcement avoidance - £37/kW/yr (Element Energy analysis based on FES 2020/21),
• Capacity Market - £12/kW/yr (2021 T-4 clearing price; a conservative value lower than Cost Of New Entrant),
• Operating Reserve - £1.4/kW/yr (Element Energy analysis).  

CrowdFlex Aplpha found that the value of flexibility could be worth £1.25Bn/yr to the end consumer across GB when the cost of providing flexibility services is accounted for. This includes £3.8Bn of avoided DN reinforcement and £2.2Bn of avoided transmission network reinforcement investments between 2024-2050.