A company based in Cork is developing the technology to generate electricity from wave power.
Up to now I have focused on the need for EDM to solve the problem with wind energy penetration on the national grid. The requirement for EDM exists equally for wind and for wave generated power.
To get a good feeling for the state of the wave power industry watch the video below:
The International Energy Association (IEA) uses two acronyms DSM and DSB which can be defined as follows:
This web site uses the phrase energy demand management (EDM) to mean the real time control of electrical load and generation plant to stabilise an electrical grid. EDM is therefor a subset of DSM. DSB is a necessary prerequisite for the implementation of EDM.
The International Energy Association (IEA) has a web site specifically devoted to DSM (http://dsm.iea.org). This site has a ‘key publications’ section from which you can download a number of interesting documents. The one I found most interesting is ‘A Practical Guide to Demand-Side Bidding’. You must register to download this document so I cannot publish a URL. This document is explosive in its content and its impact for Ireland because it states that demand side bidding is important on any grid but its importance is amplified in the context of a small network with high renewable energy availability.
The document gives a seven step implementation plan to establish a demand-side bidding (DSB) programme within a country. These seven steps will drive my business model development over the next year.
The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) is eighty years old this year. It was founded in 1927, the same year my father was born. It is hard for me to imagine that as a young child he did not have electricity at home. Up to that point electricity was generated by city corporations for local distribution. The development of the Shannon hydroelectric scheme and the creation of the national transmission grid that resulted triggered the Irish government into forming a single state owned monopoly for electrical generation and transmission. In Ireland, electricity and the ESB became synonymous. Most people in Ireland still view this as the market situation but times have changed considerably.
The European Union (EU) directive 96/92/EC, published in 1996, required member states to open their electricity markets. From the year 2000 this directive is being gradually implemented in Ireland. The ESB lost its monopoly on electricity production and distribution in Ireland. The ESB was divided into two separate business units, ESB Generation and ESB Networks. ESB Generation now competes as any other wholesale elctricity generation company in the state. ESB Networks maintains the distribution network.
Once the ESB monopoly was broken, the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) www.cer.iebecame the overall regulator of the Irish energy market including electricity. A new organisation EirGrid www.eirgrid.com was founded to act as the System Operator and the wholesale market operator for electricity in Ireland.
How does this new structure affect the regulation and administration of EDM projects, existing or proposed, in Ireland? Any EDM projects must be initiated and licensed by the CER and must be operated by EirGrid.
In order to facilitate wind energy penetration, EDM must be real time. The only real time EDM in Ireland is STAR and that is limited in size, is currently closed to new entrants, and is designed to assist in rare cases of generation plant failure. Obviously if I am to implement an EDM business in Ireland I will need the necessary regulatory and administrative procedures to be implemented bt CER and EirGrid. The question is therefore, how disposed to EDM are CER and EirGrid. The following link answers that question:-
CER are planning to implement a pilot Demand Side Management (DSM) project involving smart metering and time of day tariffs. Surprisingly the discussion document in the above link does not mention wind energy at all. I think that this is because the project is in response to initiatives at a European level and it is only in the Irish context that EDM takes on a specific signifiacance in relationship to wind energy.
Also you will notice that CER use the acronym DSM while I use the acronym EDM. Do these mean the same thing? From the published literature, demand side management appears to be a very broad term that includes all kinds of energy efficiency projects at the consumer. DSM includes EDM as a subset. Energy demand mangement is specifically about the real time generation, curtailment and consumption of electricity to achieve grid stability.
EnerNOC Inc. is an excellent example of a company offering EDM services. The company is based in the USA. Each customer of EnerNOC has an EnerNOC Site Server (ESS) installed. The following photograph shows some of these devices ready for shipment.
EDM requires measurement and control functionality at the customer site and the ESS implements this. Every ESS has a communications link back to a Network Operations Centre (NOC) that acts as a central control point. The name EnerNOC comes from a concatenation of Energy and NOC. The following photograph shows the NOC.
From the NOC, EDM can be implemented by either curtailing loads at the customer site or by starting diesel generators at the customer site. In either case load is removed from the grid, reestablishing stability.
EnerNOC is paid by the TSO for every MW of load removed from the grid. At times of grid instability the TSO is prepared to pay far more for load shedding than the normal cost of electricity. This money, paid by the TSO, is shared between EnerNOC and EnerNOCs customer.
Tim Healy is the CEO of EnerNOC. With a name like that there has got to be an Irish link there somewhere. Click on the following URL if you want to hear Tim talk some more about his company.
http://videoplayer.thestreet.com/TimHealyInterview
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Ireland needs an EDM company with a business model similar to EnerNOC in order to further stabilise our grid so as to allow deeper penetration of wind power. In the Irish case we may also need to add load to the grid for stability to compensate at times that wind exceeds forecasted energy output. This could be done by using refrigeration or HVAC loads whose thermostat could be controlled. So, for example, a refrigeration plant normally run at -10C could go to -12C at times of surplus wind energy. Later when energy was scarce (and therefore more expensive) the thermostat could be reset to -10C.
It is my prime business objective to setup an Irish EDM company.
Photographs are used with permission of EnerNOC, Inc.