This document is the United Energy Demand Response Project Performance Report for the ARENA Advancing Renewables Programme – Demand Response programme. The knowledge shared is for the summer 2017-18 testing period.
Report extract
United Energy intends to deliver the demand response services through the use of remote-controlled voltage reduction at our 47 zone substations initiated from our Network Control Centre. This service will use our existing fleet of smart meters deployed across the distribution network to provide time-lagged customer voltage data from all connected smart meters to enable reductions in voltage while maintaining voltage compliance during the demand response event. We intend to reduce the voltage across the network by 3% on average to deliver at least 30MW of demand response within 10 minutes when called upon, sustained over a 4 hour period between 10am and 10pm on business days. Due to the mathematical relationship between voltage and real power, as demand increases, the level of demand response provided by United Energy will also automatically increase.
Results of voltage reduction tests on the United Energy distribution network in 2017 reveal that there is a 0.8% real power reduction on average for every 1.0% voltage reduction and this can be sustained for a number of hours. This voltage reduction was implemented through the remote control adjustment of float voltage settings at our zone substations by our 24-7 manned Network Control Centre and can be implemented within 10 minutes of receiving instruction to reduce demand from AEMO.