demand management

Britain’s smart-grid company Reactive Technologies has launched a cloud-based demand-side management (DSM) service for commercial and industrial electricity customers.

The so-called Tradenergy service is designed to manage energy consumption in a flexible and profitable way, offering recurring “risk-free” revenue streams without long-term contracts with aggregators participating in the Short Term Operating Reserve (STOR).

The DSM service uses software control to shift energy demands of each consumer in order to minimise energy consumption and enable consumers to benefit from other revenue sources.

According to Oxford-based Reactive Technologies, the Tradenergy technology increases the responsiveness and reduces operational impact by remotely optimising how and when individual electrical assets consume power.

“We believe the only cost- effective way of preventing the UK’s lights going off due to shrinking capacity margins is to focus on allowing end customers to be better prepared for the future by enabling flexibility of how and when energy is used," said Marc Borret, CEO and founder of Reactive Technologies. "Not just when the grid operator calls for it during times of grid stress or peak demand,” he added.

The company said that the DSM service replaces the need of backup diesel generators.

A study by Navigant Research forecasts that the demand response load curtailment in Europe will grow from 30.8GW in 2014 to 196.7GW in 2023.