Commercial and industrial companies could cut their energy
bills or even generate extra income by connecting the computer systems
used to run their factories to specialist energy management
software, according to the latest study by distributed energy
resource management software firm Smarter Grid Solutions.

The Glasgow-based tech business will present its findings at next week’s
influential “CIRED” international conference on electricity
distribution held in Madrid, Spain.

Distributed energy resources management systems (DERMS) are usually used
by utility companies to help run their electricity networks.

DERMS allow grid operators to balance the intermittent supply
of electricity from renewable energy devices such as wind turbines and
solar panels with demand from energy users, including through the use
of energy storage devices like batteries and demand-side response
(DSR), through which large energy users are incentivised to lower their
demand during peak periods.

SGS’s DERMS software connects a full spectrum of low carbon technologies
to the grid while optimising grid operations and revenues for distribution
network customers. The company’s flagship product, ANM Strata, is the
only DERMS software on the market to combine ‘look ahead’ grid optimisation functionality
with real-time control of service delivery.

SGS’s report – which presents results from the European Union’s
“OPTIMISED” project – shows that DERMS can also be used inside factories
and other energy-intensive industries to improve energy
efficiency and cut energy bills.

Businesses could even generate money by selling any excess electricity
generated on site by solar panels, wind turbines or other devices back to
the grid.

Laing O’Rourke, an engineering and construction company based in the UK,
and Spanish high-precision machining outfit Goimek took part in
the project and demonstrated Smarter Grid Solutions’ software
in operation at their factories.

The project, which deployed SGS’ system in trial mode, looked at how much
energy was being consumed, how much was being paid for it, how much carbon
dioxide was being generated to produce the electricity and at
DSR opportunities.

Using DERMS to control DSR and a combined solar panel and energy storage
battery at the Laing O’Rouke factory could produce a financial benefit of
£9,000 a year from flexibility services and cut the carbon dioxide
emitted to generate its electricity by the equivalent of 12,000kg, the
report calculated. The larger energy, renewable and carbon reduction
incentive returns are much greater.

Dr Graham Ault, executive director and co-founder of Smarter
Grid Solutions, said: “There’s an energy revolution taking place, with
energy users becoming active partners instead of passive consumers.

“This final project report demonstrates how DERMS could
allow energy-intensive industries and other commercial and industrial
energy users to take part in the revolution by altering their usage to fit
in with supply and demand on the wider network.

“DERMS could allow commercial and industrial users in the UK to take part
in DSR opportunities such as Balancing System Price Response
and Distribution Use of System Red Band Reduction.

“Although the financial benefits are modest in this example of
two flexibility services, our report clearly demonstrates that savings
could be achieved and shows promising results for the
future.  Our DERMS software implementations in Spain and
the UK also proved the ease of integration and configuration to all
the available DSR and on-site energy management opportunities in those
markets”

Dr Graham Herries, overall OPTIMISED project coordinator from Laing
O’Rourke said, “This project has shown the important role industrial
energy users can play in the changing energy landscape. Utilising
SGS products to manage and optimise our energy consuming processes
has highlighted future savings we can make across our operations and the
value of future DER and DSR developments.”

Smarter Grid Solutions is already working with four of the six electricity
distribution companies in Great Britain and has connected more than 400MW
of generation capacity to distribution grids, as well as saving
its clients more than €200m in costs.

The company was founded in 2008 by Dr Ault, Dr Bob Currie and Alan
Gooding, and now has 70 members of staff spread across its offices
in Glasgow, London, New York and California.

Back in February, Smarter Grid Solutions was invited to report about its
innovative projects in New Orleans, Louisiana, at DistribuTECH,
the largest transmission and distribution conference and exhibition in
North America.

Robert MacDonald, Smarter Grid Solutions Head of Consulting & Analysis
will present the results of this project at CIRED and also present other
project and participate in invited Round Tables on related topics
of DER planning and optimisation.

The OPTIMISED project has received funding from the European Union’s
Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement
No 680515.

The full report can be read here: https://www.smartergridsolutions.com/media/1264/integrating-der-management-systems-into-industrial-energy-management-deployment-results-sgs-h2020-partners-paper-for-cired-2019.pdf