BYPL successfully implemented Manual Pilot Demand Response project

Government of India is on a mission to add 175 GW of renewable capacity to its grid over the next few years. At the same time, through the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, a large programme on deployment of energy efficient equipment is also underway. Both these initiatives demonstrate the urgency through which demand side management measures are being adopted by the government.

DSM and energy efficiency measures help reduce the end demand, eliminating the need for capacity addition and hence help in carbon emission mitigation. Demand Response can be defined as voluntary reduction by the consumer of its electricity demand over a given time interval in response to a signal (financial benefits/penalty or other inducements).In essence, customers are offered financial benefits/penalty for reducing or increasing demand during an event of Demand Response. A bridge between capacity addition and DSM measures is Demand Response (DR). DR is regarded as an essential component as it helps build up the necessary flexibility on the demand side to match the flexibility on supply side. At the same time it is also an important DSM measure that can also be used by grid managers for managing peak demand.

A typical DR programme offers several benefits as below:

• Can be used for peak management
• Can help manage emergencies/contingencies like generation back-down or grid failure
• Helps avoid capacity addition in transmission and distribution infrastructure

BYPL has implemented the pilot project as per DERC order no  RA/BYPL/16-17/221 in association with ICF, a reputed international consulting firm, and supported by Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation has successfully tested a Demand Response pilot programme during peak summer months of 2017.

In the pilot, 19 industrial and commercial consumers voluntarily reduced their consumption for 1- hour duration. 8 such pilots were carried out during the months of April – June 2017. It is pertinent to mention here that this is first of its kind of manual DR program conducted by any Utility so far, which has resulted in cumulative savings of around 17 MW.

• At the time of DR event, consumer curtailed/ shifted the load, which was verified through on-line billing system.
• Actual saving achieved during the DR event was analyzed and compared with the baseline consumption.
• An incentive of Rs 1per unit provided to the participating consumers.

Demand Response is a globally proven mechanism for grid management as a Demand Side Management tool.  BYPL carried out detailed interactions and capacity building session with consumers before the event and informed about measures which could be taken to reduce demand without compromising on their output and business requirements.

With the success of this pilot programm, BYPL now intends to scale up the demand response program covering a larger group of KCC consumers which could help in reducing peak demand by 20-30 MW. Keeping in view the success of pilot project, we intend to up-scale these initiatives for wider participation.