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IEA Paper: "Greater demand response is needed to improve the flexibility and resilience of electricity systems"

A recent International Energy Agency (IEA) paper says that "greater demand response is needed to improve the flexibility and resilience of electricity systems."

The paper discusses how countries can achieve a wide range of economic and environmental benefits by further embracing and implementing demand response programs.

Doug Cooke, Senior Executive Advisor on Electricity Markets and Security at the IEA, lists key elements that need to be in place in order for countries to fully embrace demand response:

These elements include:

introducing a competitive, dynamic retail market with real-time prices to encourage the development of innovative products and services that can harness ‘demand response’ effectively and at the lowest possible cost

ensuring there is a knowledgeable and well-informed customer base that has the capability and opportunity to take full advantage of available choices

allowing ready access to detailed, real-time customer information, while ensuring privacy, to help stimulate competition and improve the quality of customer choice

improve legal and regulatory governance frameworks that reduce uncertainty and transaction costs and deploying smart metering technologies and control devices to improve the ability of users to respond, especially small volume consumers

Cooke goes on to talk about pressure on the grid continuing to grow:

"Pressure on power systems in the twenty-first century will continue to grow as demand increases and power flows become more dynamic with the large-scale introduction of variable renewable generation. In order to cope with this strain, greater power system flexibility and resilience will be required, which means, among other things, substantially increasing demand response. And this will only be achieved by breaking through current barriers," said Mr. Cooke.