Demand reduction

Introduction

A supermarket is looking to provide Flexible Services to Electricity North West through a Secure contract by reducing their energy usage at peak times.

About Flexible Services

When the demand for electricity is greater than the amount that Electricity North West can provide, we procure Flexible Services to alleviate constraints on our network during peak times. These services are provided by companies or individual customers known as Flexibility Providers, who own assets in our region such as generators, battery storage and Electric Vehicle (EV) charge points that can generate more or use less electricity when required, and can provide a minimum of 50kW either individually or via an aggregator. This allows us to balance supply and demand, ensuring a safe and reliable supply of energy for our customers and in return for providing extra capacity, flexibility providers receive payment from the network. 

Delivering a Secure service through demand reduction

The Secure service is a pre-scheduled product that is procured to manage peak demand loading on the network. There are a number of ways the supermarket can reduce their energy consumption to deliver the Secure service during the required window. These include temporarily switching off:

Store heating and cooling systems: Account for between 30% and 50% of a supermarkets total electricity consumption. Freezers may be able to be pre-cooled in advance of a service delivery window and then switched off for the duration of the service window to reduce electrical demand. These can be linked to temperature sensors which will cause the cooling to resume if the temperature within the fridge/freezer drops below a safe temperature.

Electrical ovens: By scheduling in store baking to times other than during the service delivery window this will allow the store to switch off the Electric ovens utilised within the bakery reducing the stores electrical demands during these periods.

EV charge points: Controlling the number of electric vehicles on charge or the rate of charging to reduce electrical demand. This could be either via an automated smart chagrining technology or by manual scheduling. This is likely to be more controllable for fleet vehicles of the supermarket (e.g. delivery vans) and staff EV charging. For example if all the delivery vans are left at the store overnight they can be charged up when there is no flexible services requirements and then they are not adding to the stores electrical demands during the delivery period. 

Heating and cooling systems: Store heating and cooling systems can be temporarily reduced in output/switched off during the service delivery window to reduce the sites electrical demand. Heat and cold storage technologies could be utilised to maintain the stores temperature whilst not increasing the stores electrical demands. Alternatively hybrid heating systems such as a combined Electrical and gas heat pump system could be used to swap from electrical demand to gas demand.

Pre-tender

Our tenders are published on the PicloFlex platform twice a year in Spring and Autumn in line with our Network Development Plan (NDP) and Distribution Future Electricity Scenarios (DFES) publications to reflect our latest requirements. To be notified of our upcoming tenders, the supermarket signs up to our flexible services distribution list.   

Prior to the launch of the tender, the supermarket:

• Registers the company onto Piclo's Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) to pre-qualify to participate. The
   information submitted such as credit checks and insurance details are assessed by Electricity North West and once approved, the companies DPS remains valid to participate for up to 12 months.
• The supermarket then registers and pre-qualifies the assets they wish to utilise onto Piclo. 

 

Tender process 

An Invitation to Tender (ITT) is published on our website and on Piclo which defines the terms of the tender and the tender process, Flexible Service types required, periods and capacities for each zone requiring a flexible service, and the technical requirements.

Pre- Qualification

Once the ITT has been published, the supermarket reviews the requirements using the interactive map on Piclo, and upon establishing that they are located within a requirement zone seeking a Secure service, they calculate how much of the required demand response it can offer, when, and at what price. Prior to submitting a bid, the supermarket uses the cost calculator tool on our website to check that the prices they are prepared to offer for availability and utilisation don't exceed the ceiling price that we are offering for the service as part of this tender round. The cost calculator can be found within appendix 6 of the ITT appendices. At this point, the supermarket has decided they would like to participate in the tender and their next step is to complete the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) on Piclo to provide the necessary technical details of the participating sites and the capability for delivery. Once the questionnaire has been completed, the supermarket then confirms their participation in the competition on Piclo. 

Submitting a bid

For the final stage of the procurement process, the supermarket submits a bid to the tender via the Piclo Flex platform. This is carried out by linking the pre-registered assets to the Availability and Utilisation payments, as well as the periods where the supermarket can deliver availability of the response. Once the bidding window has closed, Electricity North West assesses the tender responses before accepting or rejecting bids based on the proposed payment and its ability to meet the specification. If the supermarket's bids are successful they will then enter into a Flexibile Services Agreement with Electricity North West to deliver the Dynamic service within the required service windows. Electricity North West utilises the Standard Flexibility Services Agreement developed by the Energy Network's Association Open Network's Project.