4 strategies to unlock demand flexibility

Demand flexibility is a business’s ability to reduce or shift its electricity demand temporarily, and being more flexible across operations has its rewards. It can unlock revenue generation opportunities, lower energy spending, and support the energy transition. View our infographic below to discover four strategies that enable you to capitalize on flexibility, leveraging your potential to participate in the energy market.

 

Organizations across various industries are witnessing increasing operational costs due to volatile energy prices. As a result, they are calling out for solutions and strategies that help them reduce energy costs and unlock the full potential of their operations and energy infrastructure. Demand flexibility is the answer.

 

A business’s ability to be more flexible across operations is the pillar of any successful energy strategy. Why? Grid operators are paying organizations for energy flexibility to ensure grid stability. Demand flexibility becomes a lucrative way for businesses to earn new revenue and reduce their energy bills if deployed strategically. Not only that, leveraging flexibility doesn’t have to be difficult or disruptive to your operations.

Use our infographic below to explore strategies to unlock demand flexibility, and then read on for a more detailed dive into these strategies. You can also download a PDF copy.

Experienced partners that have created energy reduction plans for organizations to participate in demand response will have experience with your business’s sector, and they know the best way to tailor your demand response strategy to your needs and goals.

 

Most industries have typical areas of focus for their demand response strategy. A few popular methods they leverage for demand response participation include:

• High-tech and Manufacturing facilities: Turning off unnecessary lighting, shutting down some production lines, or even implementing full shutdowns temporarily
• Department stores, hotels and stadiums: Turning off non-essential lighting, raising HVAC setpoints
• Food and beverage companies and cold chain: Turning off ovens or fans, and injection molds, and reducing freezers and production lines
• Plastics companies: Turning off production lines, extruders, injection molding, air compressors, and HVAC
• Oil and gas companies: Turning off injection pumps, pipeline pumps and motors, and compressors

 

Businesses often quickly find they have more flexibility than they realized. One of our customers told us that “because this involves the major piece of equipment for our facility’s production, our leadership team needed assurance that we wouldn’t be putting our facilities at risk. As soon as we implemented a plan to operate safely and without an impact on quality, and we achieved new revenues and energy savings, our leadership team realized the benefit.” 

Are you looking for ways to maximize demand response performance, improve operation reliability, or just make managing your energy strategy easier? Automatic controls enhance on-site staff efficiency and effectiveness when engaging in Demand Response programs, allowing you to focus on your day-to-day operations, not manual energy management.

To participate in demand response, there is a huge list of possible assets you can use in your curtailment strategy. Many of these assets may not be essential to the day-to-day operations of your facility. Some organizations shut down as many systems as they can to maximize their earnings, while others may prefer to focus on reducing energy use while operating as normally as possible. It really depends on your energy strategy and where you want to focus.

 

Different strategies are possible because there are so many different items that can be part of a curtailment strategy – examples of the equipment and applications that you can curtail include:

• Air handlers & compressors
• Chilled water systems 
• Defrost elements 
• HVAC systems 
• Irrigation pumps 
• Motors 
• Production equipment 
• Processing lines 
• Pool pumps/heaters 
• Refrigeration systems 
• Water heating
• Backup generators
• UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply )
• BESS (Battery Energy Storage System)

Different flexibility solutions require different levels of commitment and complexity. Beginning with an introductory project – for instance, participating in a demand response program with more advanced notice – can not only ensure minimal disruption, but it can demonstrate the ROI in continuing to pursue these options. 

 

One of our customers noted that their first demand response site served as proof of concept – company leadership initially hesitated to enroll multiple facilities in demand response. But after the first payments for their original site, they asked, “What other facilities can we sign up?”

 

These are just a few of the many possible strategies that allow you to unlock flexibility in your business’s energy infrastructure. There are countless paths to finding and using flexibility to optimize your energy strategy, earn new revenue, and reduce energy spend.

 

Enel X has been helping businesses leverage flexibility since 2016 in Taiwan. We’ve worked across a wide range of industries in Taiwan and globally, helping businesses tailor a strategy to their specific needs to maximize their flexibility with minimal disruption to their operations. Contact us today to see how your business can participate.