The National Energy System Operator (NESO) has published the latest findings of its Ofgem-funded CrowdFlex trial.
The first year of large-scale trials for the project, which first launched in 2021 and received funding through Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF), has been completed.
Customers of project partners OVO and Ohme EV were incentivised to adjust their energy use in line with demand on the grid or make assets like EVs available to the grid for automated charging at beneficial times.
Utilisation and availability trials will continue testing how different recruitment messages affect participation and gather data to model how best to establish domestic flexibility as a more reliable resource for grid balancing and operation. Demand side flexibility is a way to support the UK’s electricity grid as more intermittent generation comes online.
Saving money was cited by 73% of customers as the reason for taking part in the trial, however data showed that non-fiscal messaging was almost as effective in eliciting sign-ups; the annual report published by NESO states that “behavioural patterns have not yet shown evidence of strong price sensitivity”.
Exploratory analysis of event characteristics through the trial indicated that a shorter notice period might be more effective, although findings from the most recent summer trials are not sufficient to make significant conclusions about how event characteristics affect flexibility.
The report does state, however, that insights gathered will inform future trial designs: the winter trials are testing more events, better distribution, different days of the week, multiple events a day, different messaging and have more focus on Low Income and Vulnerable customers and different customer archetypes. The winter trials will run until April 2025.
Josh Visser, NESO’s innovation incubator senior manager, pointed out this is the first project to be incubated in the new NESO function and said the first year of the beta project has been “highly successful”.
During the winter trial so far, Ohme says it has awarded participants over £100,000 for adjusting their EV charging as part of the trial. Other partners in a consortium delivering the project for NESO are OVO, the Centre for Net Zero, Amazon Web Services, ERM, National Grid Electricity Distribution and Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks.
CrowdFlex project lead at NESO, Sanna Atherton, said: “CrowdFlex is building forecasting models of domestic demand and flexibility, and aims to firmly establish domestic flexibility as a reliable grid management resource, helping to reduce energy bills and support the transition to a smart, flexible and zero carbon grid.”
