Demand flexibility service

One of the challenges of the energy transition is how to deal with fluctuations in supply and demand. The sun is out when it is out, and not when energy demand is high. The same holds for wind. Energy storage is generally rather inefficient. So what to do? One of the possible solutions is to adapt demand to supply. That can’t solve everything of course; people will be keen to have the heating on in months when the sun doesn't have much power. It would not make sense to convince people to use their heaters in July rather than January. But for people with appliances with high energy consumption, they could sometimes just move the use thereof around in the day. And many energy companies have started to incentivise that.

My energy company is one of those. I recently received an email inviting me to join the Demand Flexibility Service. The idea is that they occasionally indicate they expect a lot of demand, and ask you to tone down your use over that period. And I think that is a reasonable thing to do. As a consumer you can guess roughly when demand is high, but it is the energy companies who have a much better overview. So why not run the washing machine outside such a period of high demand? Or try to boil a lot of water for tea beforehand, and put it in thermal flasks, so you avoid making peak use even worse?

I am not a big user of energy. I am a bit infamous for it, I suppose. But I suppose even my consumption can make a difference. And I don't do the laundry very often, but yes, I can plan that strategically. I don't have things such as tumble dryers or dishwashers or any of that, or chargers of e-bike batteries. So my contribution will be small. But a small contribution is still a contribution! So I signed up.

I haven't yet been alerted to period in which I will be incentivised to lower my energy use. I'll see how it works out in practice! I'll do my best to do my bit…