1 July 2013: Discussions from the latest (third) meeting of the Mayor’s High Level Electricity Working Group – which took place on 18 June – have recently been published. The papers can be downloaded here [see details of previous meetings here]. Points of interest include:
- GLA “officers are currently in the process of setting up a mechanism to provide UKPN regularly with up to date data from the GLA’s London Development Database in particular about planning permission.” Provision of this data will allow UKPN a better understanding of where future developments are likely to come forward, and foresight on where future energy demand – and potential future new decentralised energy generation capacity connected to the distribution network – is likely to be introduced.
- The minutes also inform that “The GLA and UKPN have also established a sub-group with respective experts to discuss identified Decentralised Energy and demand side response [DSR] issues and develop a joint strategy initially covering UKPN’s demand site [minor typo here in minutes – this should read ‘demand side’] response initiatives and connection cost barrier for Decentralised Energy. The subgroup met on 3 May for the first time and will meet again twice this year.”
- The minutes also capture the following interesting point: “It was also mentioned that demand side response measures work best in new developments. GLA officers confirmed that development could be encouraged to be ‘demand-side-response ready’ through the London Plan. This will be considered as part of the Further Alterations to the London Plan.” The discussions do not go on to explain how this could be done, but energy management systems on site could potentially reduce the load of a building during times of peak grid system demand (ie reduce lighting or electrical heating/cooling uses, restrict lift use) or potentially looking to onsite decentralised energy systems exporting more of their output (or conversely when there is a lot of wind or perhaps PV output on the grid, onsite DE systems such as CHP could switch off).
UK Power Networks (UKPN) – under their Low Carbon London Programme – are already undertaking trials of such demand response activities – see the following press release.