Project Summary
In a smarter decentralised energy system, customers are becoming more integrated prosumers who can impact on the network and broader system operation. Historically resilience has meant providing consumers with a guaranteed supply, but future prosumers could have a role in supporting this resilience.
Resilient Customer Response (RCR) aims to unlock the potential for DNOs to use customer's behind-the-meter (BTM) assets and services to support network resilience, and enable networks to prioritise vulnerable customers who are subject to supply loss. RCR will explore the extent to which resilient consumers can support themselves and communities with their BTM assets when the restoration of supply is delayed.
RCR meets the challenge aims by:
• Identifying novel methods and processes for DNOs to access support for improving resilience on low stability networks.
• Using customer BTM assets to provide grid/system support and improved
resilience allowing network investment to be prioritised where needed most.
• Developing a commercial and investment case for incentivising consumers to provide self-resilience.
• Developing new network processes and understanding the network's role to enable coordination of BTM assets to support network resilience and optimise network operations and investment.
Northern Powergrid (lead organisation ) is responsible for resiliently supplying 3.9million homes and businesses. RCR will help NPG develop new ways to respond to customers in future events such as Storm Arwen.
LCP Delta (project manager and lead researcher) is a leading European research and consultancy company providing insight into the energy transition, with a particular focus on customers and the interaction of customers with the energy system.
The University of Southampton Sustainable Energy Research Group has internationally recognised expertise in socio-technical aspects of residential low carbon energy systems. Their ongoing research on semi-automated demand response through heat deferral and local storage as well as micro-grids for local energy resilience in East Africa will support RCR.
Energy consumers and prosumers will directly benefit from RCR through improved resilience and potentially value generation. Vulnerable customers will directly benefit by improved prioritisation.
Potential users the RCR solution are electricity DNOs, demand-side response aggregators, private homeowners and potentially energy communities. These users need a clear pathway to deploy resilience from BTM assets including understanding:
• The types of assets suitable and available, and the resilience they can provide
• New commercial arrangements to realise the whole systems value of private assets supporting network resilience.
• The costs and benefits to the people providing the resilience (and those on the PSR side receiving it).
Innovation Justification
The problem
Increased reliance upon the electricity networks with electrification, combined with the challenges in operating reliable networks (e.g. more extreme weather events) means that providing a resilient supply for consumers remains a challenge for DNOs. Storm Arwen (November 2021) is a relevant example of an event which is likely to become more common.
Solution and innovation
An untested solution to improve resilience is to make use of the increasing number of BTM energy assets in consumers' homes, s(e.g. batteries, EVs, PV systems, low power systems ). These are currently being rapidly deployed and will increase exponentially over the coming years providing a distributed VPP behind the meter.
BTM assets could provide power to consumers in network outage events, providing a level of resilience, and enabling DNOs to prioritise restoration on vulnerable customers. RSR will also explore whether BTM assets can provide local resilience to other (including vulnerable) consumers, enabling the maintenance of essential services (e.g. communications, heating controls, lighting) at a community scale during network supply restoration.
RCR is required because there are no documented examples of using consumer BTM assets to support network resilience in the UK . RCR will draw on relevant existing projects:
• Micro-resilience (NPG) using portable battery storage. RCR provides the bridge between Micro-resilience and developing a consumer-led approach.
• Community DSO (NPG) looking at local network operation models
• RAAS (SSEN) using network connected batteries to provide resilience
• VOLL (ENWL) understanding the value of a resilient connection to different consumers.
The need for funding
Securing resilience from BTM assets is outside the scope of ONO business-as usual activities and current regulation prohibits network operators from exploring, funding and operating them. This innovation project is therefore essential to explore this concept.
Economic and sustainability value against a counterfactual
Costly alternative upgrading/reinforcing the network (e.g. an additional line) still leaves the network exposed to extreme weather events risks and doesn't allow prioritisation of resources during outages. Evidence from storm Arwen demonstrated (NPG findings) the significant impact that large scale events have on customers and the challenges for power restoration. It also showed that customers with BTM assets want to remain more resilient and take control of their energy supply during outages, but that other customers may use higher carbon/ more polluting solutions if the network isn't resilient (e.g. Diesel gensets, fossil fuel or wood burning).
Project Benefits
At the discovery phase, RCR will explore a range of direct and indirect benefits to consumers:
• The direct benefit of BTM asset owners being able to provide self-resilience during outages and benefit from incentives.
• The indirect benefit for non-BTM consumers, particularly vulnerable, to have
service restoration prioritised, reducing downtime.
• The community and / or societal benefit of sharing consumer resilience to enable whole communities to manage short outages.
• The indirect benefit of improved network cost efficiency, and therefore lower distribution costs for consumers.
• The indirect benefit of incentivising the deployment of low carbon BTM assets and increasing uptake.
• The indirect benefit of more sustainable restoration of power, and negating the need for fossil generation (such as diesel gensets) or highly polluting consumer sources (e.g. solid fuel fires).
The Discovery Phase will explore how these benefits can be quantified leading into more detailed analysis at the Alpha and Beta field trial phases. The types of quantification could include:
• The numbers of consumers participating in providing resilience services based on availability of BTM assets and acceptance of services/ incentivisation.
• The activation of consumer resilience measured in number of events, % of
overall outages deployed, and the utility provided (e.g. kWh total/ per customer).
• The reduction in time and costs of restoration, and the associated hours and
utility benefit to consumers.
• The improvements in restoration time for vulnerable customers enabled by prioritisation of resource.
• The reduction in network operation costs through maximising the use of BTM
assets and reducing the need for network assets.
• The increase in LCT deployment and associated decarbonisation driven by the additional Consumer Resilience value (£) and the perceived resilience/ self control benefits.
• Long term planning cost benefits through improvements to network reinforcement investment.
• Direct CO2 and environmental benefits through the reduction in network assets
(gen sets) and consumer assets (fossil back up generation and solid fuel use).
We believe that all of the above benefits should be observable, and mostly quantifiable with the provision of suitable boundary conditions on the analysis.
Learnings
Impacts And Benefits
The discovery phase of the project has identified a solution to utilise BTM assets to deliver resilience for vulnerable customers. This phase was able to lay the groundwork for the solution and demonstrate the potential benefits and we intend to develop this project outside the SIF process.
The solution identified can provide a number of benefits to customers and the network, including reducing the customer minutes lost and providing cost savings to the network. For vulnerable customers, particularly those with health conditions that means they rely on medical equipment that require a power supply this reduction in minutes of supply lost is very significant. Other benefits include environmental benefits of reducing the reliance on carbon intensive diesel generators for back-up power. Our modelling process has provided a high level analysis of the benefits; a summary of these findings is provided below.
Basic feasibility, with regard to energy availability in BTM assets and value to the consumer, has been shown for:
· BTM assets expected in 2025 in high LCT-uptake areas or with additional V2G investment (the latter bringing greater benefit), with restrictions on served load or outage duration serving vulnerable and prosumers only
· BTM assets expected on average in 2030, with restrictions on served load or outage duration serving vulnerable and prosumers only (benefit for all may be possible in high-uptake areas or with additional V2G investment)
· BTM assets expected on average in 2040, with minor restrictions on served load or outage duration serving all households
· BTM assets expected on average in 2050, without significant restrictions serving all households
A high level cost benefit analysis has found that under favourable assumptions for worst- served customers, we have shown that a high value can be delivered per substation – over
£1million over a 25-year term. This many would regard as a favourable business case, however it is made with assumptions about the frequency of outages that only represent a very small minority of worst-served customers, if any. Furthermore, to realise such positive returns the worst-served customers must be predictably so. In addition, as outlined above we chose to be consistent with UKRI valuations of CMLs and CIs, which are valued higher than the VoLL valuations. Therefore, whilst this provides an indication of the potential value a more detailed analysis of the cost benefit, including exploring how to most appropriately value CML and CI, will be done in the next stages of the project.
