Demand flexibility is becoming an increasingly important consideration in policy and investment decisions as Australia’s grid looks to balance established solar and rooftop solar use, significant growth in battery storage, and rising electric-vehicle adoption.
Bluecurrent is ushering in greater grid flexibility through Dynamic Load Control – smart technology that balances electrical power distribution in real-time.
“Dynamic Load Control is a relative newcomer to the flexibility equation, joining other distributed energy resources (DER) as a key player in a smoothly transitioning energy system,” Bluecurrent acting chief executive officer Richard Fink said.
“Receiving commands from our energy retail customers, Bluecurrent can move electricity consumption from peak demand periods to periods of excess solar generation reducing pressure on the grid and smoothing load across the day. This is done by turning water heating on and off at the individual NMI (national metering identifier) level without the homeowner needing to do anything differently.
“This takes a home’s hot water cylinder and treats it like a battery, with its stored heat maintained for short periods of time without electricity.”
Flexibility is delivered with advanced smart-metering infrastructure and cloud-based control platforms, enabling real-time load management at scale.
“At its peak, Dynamic Load Control commands talk to more than 40,000 hot water cylinders up to 24 times a day for just one retail customer, enabling true flexibility of energy use,” Fink said.
“Demand flexibility achieved through scalable, digital innovation represents an immediately available and economically efficient mechanism to accelerate the energy transition. It’s estimated that the amount of flexible load capacity available to our customers in Australia is 0.5GW, which is a significant contribution from DER at scale.”
Learn about Bluecurrent’s Dynamic Load Control.
