What is demand flexibility, and why is it relevant?

Want to champion renewable energy whilst simultaneously lowering the consumption of dirty, expensive power? Demand flexibility is the key. Here we’ve laid out some of the ways in which flexibility will have an impact on the world’s energy usage.

Currently, we balance the grid by keeping coal and gas fired power plants in reserve to smooth the intermittency of renewable power. To do this costs money for utility companies and governments, and this cost finds its way to customers’ energy bills.

Flexibility lets us access the demand placed on the grid, so we can turn consumption up and down rather than rely on coal and gas fired power plants.

“The electricity system must become significantly more flexible by 2030. That reflects the challenges of managing a more variable supply as renewable generation increases and as conventional thermal plant retires.”

2017 Report to Parliament — Meeting Carbon Budgets: Closing the policy gap

Shutting down polluting power stations and encouraging renewable power must be a priority in solving climate change. Flexibility allows us to do this by becoming the grid balancing function needed to support this change. This technology doesn’t require us to build anything new — yet it allows us to reduce cost, cut carbon and help keep the lights on during times of stress.

Flexibility is the shifting of electricity consumption from periods of high prices to low prices. It’s an asset that is hidden in industrial and commercial sites around the globe. Today flexibility is massively underutilised.

A good household example is a dishwasher. No-one wants to have to do the washing up if they can help it, so a dishwasher saves you time and does the job for you. If it’s running on clean energy, and at a time that will have a lighter impact on your wallet, all the better. With demand flexibility, this dishwasher can be programmed to automatically run on low carbon/low cost times — and still give you the squeaky-clean plates you desire. Dishwashers are just one of dozens of smart appliances that can be used in this way.

Demand flexibility helps to solve the problem we currently have: that electricity grids are not built for producing and supplying renewable energy. In a world where we urgently need to decarbonize, this is the key we need to unlock a change in our energy system.

Flexibility is at the heart of what we do at The FLEX Network. We are the first market offer that pays customers for shifting consumption to green power and avoiding dirty, polluting electricity with a digital token.

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