British billpayers saved more than £300 million by switching the time at which they turned on their washing machines or ovens, according to figures released by the industry body for network operators. The data shows households and businesses reduced their bills by changing the time or day they used electricity – such as by cooking or washing earlier or later in the day, or setting electric cars to charge at specific times.
In the past when most of the UK’s electricity generators were fossil-fuel power plants, supply of electricity adapted to demand. Today as the wind and the sun influence when renewables are being produced, incentivising users to adapt their demand to when there is a lot of supply can help take pressure off the grid.
Flexibility can also be a valuable tool to optimise capacity while longer-term infrastructure upgrades are planned and delivered. The Energy Network Association (ENA) on Thursday said electricity networks in Great Britain secured a record high of 9 gigawatts (GW) of flexibility last year.
In turn, a total of 22 gigawatt-hours of flexibility was harnessed across the network – enough to power almost 7,000 average UK households for a full year, according to the figures. It represents a three-fold increase since the previous year, which is the biggest jump since data collection began in 2017, ENA said.
The industry group also revealed that flexibility is projected to deliver over £3 billion in savings over the next three years. This will be driven by lower contributions to infrastructure costs, reduced connection charges and the increased use of low-carbon energy sources, it said.
Dr Avinash Aithal, head of open networks at ENA, said: “It’s been tremendous to see the boom in the flexibility market over the past year. Flexibility is becoming more mainstream thanks to industry efforts to remove barriers to participation and simplify the market processes overall. The outcome of our efforts are now clear to see, with significant savings for consumers and the wider energy industry.
“Great Britain is now a global leader in energy flexibility,” he added. Together, ENA and industry have paved the way for the whole of Great Britain to participate in and benefit from the energy flexibility market.”
Last year, a majority (80%) of flexibility came from non-fossil fuel sources – 10 times the capacity of the UK’s largest solar farm, ENA said. While the majority of flexibility services came from commercial organisations, householders can also reap the benefits of using electric car chargers and heat pumps, for example, at non-peak times.
It comes as Ofgem said the energy market needs more complex time-based tariffs to encourage consumers to use power at different times. The regulator’s chief executive, Jonathan Brearley, told MPs that the tariffs would in some cases “dramatically reduce bills”.
The tariffs, also called time-of-use (TOU) tariffs or multi-rate tariffs, offer cheaper electricity at times when there is lower demand on the National Grid.
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