BESS & Demand Response, What’s the Connection?

The growing importance of demand response

Balancing the grid is essential to ensure a secure, continuous supply of energy. Maintaining a grid frequency of 50Hz has traditionally been achieved by increasing generation when demand is high, and decreasing generation when demand slows. 

Unlike gas and coal, renewables are not as easily dialled up or down as needed. But the energy they generate can be stored, managed and dispatched, while energy use is monitored and modified to keep the grid stable. This is the goal of demand response programmes. 

At the energy consumer level, demand response requires industrial and commercial businesses to shift their energy-intensive processes and the use of power-hungry equipment to off-peak times when possible. These businesses have historically played an important role in keeping a continuous balance of supply and demand. 

Now, as a service provider, Sympower is able to provide demand response on an even greater scale by aggregating larger numbers of individual energy users. By monitoring and adjusting energy consumption in real-time, and tapping into battery storage when necessary, we are able to provide flexibility in a far greener way that enables real-time balancing of the grid frequency.

What are BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems)?

There are different types of energy storage systems, including thermal energy storage and pumped hydroelectric storage. But battery energy storage systems are the most commonly deployed. Battery energy storage systems (BESS) support shifting energy consumption when demand is high and generation low, by storing excess energy when production is high for later use. 

In times of peak energy use, a battery can respond to grid frequency deviations in about a quarter of a second. This makes them a keystone technology in providing real-time balancing of the grid. Across Europe, BESS projects are seeing a new wave of investment and by 2030, Germany and Italy are projected to install about 21GW and 9GW of BESS while Greece has a pipeline of BESS projects that amount to 27GW of storage.

Although BESS is set to scale dramatically, there are still major hurdles for the technology to overcome drawbacks. Firstly, battery infrastructure projects need substantial investment and enough market confidence that capital will be covered by future revenues. 

Secondly, the raw materials required to build the technology are scarce and difficult to extract. Though, increased recycling schemes for lithium-ion batteries could alleviate some of these issues and lead to greater carbon savings, as manufacturers find more effective ways to recycle materials.  For example, in the Netherlands the so-called “Buffalo” battery is expected to save up to 23,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions per year.  

Today, BESS are the most common energy storage technology. Energy analysts and technologists say that advanced, more energy-dense batteries - along with energy management and flexibility - are the keys to integrating more clean energy into the grid. 

Drivers of demand response

Demand response and BESS can be complementary technologies to scale up clean energy. Investment in BESS has ramped up significantly in recent years, and now, demand response is also being more widely adopted due to its accessibility, affordability and effectiveness. 

Demand response is highly cost-effective as a flexibility solution, because unlike BESS, it doesn’t require investment in new assets. Instead, it unlocks the energy consumers’ existing flexibility. Previously, large-scale industrial consumers have been the primary participants in demand response by carrying out manual load shedding in the event of an impending grid emergency. Now, advancements in technology have unlocked even greater potential for real-time energy monitoring and modification using much larger numbers of smaller-scale consumers.

Europe and the United States are currently the global leaders in rolling out these demand response programmes.  The European Union has green lit an action plan to digitise energy systems and open up data access for wider demand response across the bloc, and promote the use of energy-smart appliances to boost demand response participation. Additionally, the European Commission approved a German measure allowing network operators to enter into flexible contracts with customers for a total of 1500 MW capacity, while the UK’s National Grid Demand Flexibility Service enrolled 1.6 million participants last winter. 

Powerful partners: demand response and BESS

Managing energy through flexibility solutions is critical for the energy transition and a secure energy future. Responding to increased demand would conventionally mean building additional capacity, but this is no longer a practical approach. Modern grids must meet demand in a smarter way, utilising both flexibility solutions and BESS. 

BESS and demand response share complementary features: rapid response times, high ramp rate, and - unlike conventional generators - flexible upward and downward energy management. These abilities combined present a promising and powerful partnership to facilitate and integrate more renewables into the grid while balancing frequency during peak demand. 

Using this two-pronged approach, battery storage can harness surplus energy at times of naturally low demand and release it at peak times, while demand response can collectively shift and monitor energy use to keep the grid balanced. 

BESS are already being used to balance energy imbalances occurring over a time frame of up to four hours. But they can also be used to respond to shorter imbalances through flexibility services. In fact, the International Energy Agency says that demand response and battery storage combined are expected to meet around a quarter of the world’s grid flexibility needs by 2030. By 2050, this could rise to half. 

This makes both demand response and BESS absolutely crucial, not just to the net-zero transition but to the stability of power grids around the world.