How does demand for electricity fluctuate

When the demand for electricity is greater than the base load, the National Grid reacts by providing additional electricity. Nuclear power stations and coal-fired power stations usually provide base load electricity. They run all the time because they take the longest time to start up. Hydroelectric power stations have a very short start-up time and are used to provide additional electricity at peak times. Electricity is also imported from other European countries to meet the demand at peak.

It can also be exported at other times. Discuss why the demand for electricity varies throughout the day and how the National Grid responds to this change in demand. This balancing of supply and demand is accomplished automatically through M2M communication: The Next Box — a remote access module that was specifically designed for our needs — transmits GPRS signals.

To successfully manage power supply and demand, we developed a dedicated algorithm. It collects and computes data from various sources: operational data from our Virtual Power Plant, current weather and grid data as well as live market data.

The accumulated data allows us to trade power with the highest profitability on day-ahead, intraday and control reserve markets. What types of customers are participating on the consumption side? Many consumers possess flexibility in their use of electricity. This applies especially to customers with inert processes such as pumping, heating, melting, crushing, processing etc. These customers can shift their heavy consumption periods to times of low cost electricity without compromising their operations.

This is what we call Demand Response: Consumers shift demand from high-price to lower-price times of the day in a constant optimization. Of course not every consumer is able to change his electricity-consuming processes on a quarter-hourly basis. And not every plant is able to offer a great amount of flexibility. For example, some biogas plants feature relatively small gas storage tanks or they are obliged to provide heat to a local heat network, which results in a certain amount of obligatory electricity production.

When bottlenecks are identified, these can often be minimized to enlarge the amount of flexibility coming from a single installation networked in our VPP — for example by investing in larger tanks, in heat buffers etc. To secure the future power supply, such investments are extremely useful. Even with more installations of wind and solar, there will be times in the year, when there is hardly any wind or solar power. In these times flexible renewables that are able to ramp up and flexible consumers that can ramp down will be in high demand.

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Background Consequences of energy system transformation Who is disrupting the utility frequency? The dance of production and consumption Decentralized energy, seen through the eyes of a power trader How to balance supply and demand on new electricity markets. B There is a greater demand because people are consuming more. The result is that there are hours of the day when energy is more expensive and also times of the year when the clearest trend is upwards.

On the demand side, over the course of the day there are two periods of heavy electricity consumption. In winter, the first peak period usually occurs between 11 a. The second, with prices generally higher in winter, occurs between 7 p. In this case shopping activity combines with people returning home, leading to increased electricity consumption due to routine tasks or leisure activities.

The big difference is that in summer the increased energy consumption due to air conditioning and the different working day adopted by many businesses summer schedule, early start and finish, no lunch break means that the main peak period is concentrated around noon. This daily pattern can be increased by certain circumstances. The main one is the weather. Extreme cold or heat, which boosts the use of heating or air conditioning, increases electricity consumption.

There are also days of increased consumption due to more activity, as happens at Christmas due to shopping. But supply is also involved. If less cheap electricity from renewable sources is produced and electricity from thermal or combined cycle sources has to be used, the price of energy goes up.

As it does if there is an increase in the price of fuels such as coal thermal energy or gas combined cycle plants. All this means that at times of greatest demand for energy cold spells in winter and to a lesser extent, heat waves in summer and lower production of renewable energy due to lack of wind, the highest energy prices are usually reached. Electricity prices do not always increase.

There are many positive circumstances that can lead to the price of energy falling. In addition to the existence of off-peak times, there are circumstances that push down prices. Once again, the weather is the main cause. Bad weather with strong winds can lead to energy demand being met from lower-priced wind sources. On the supply side, a fall in fuel prices also has a positive impact by reducing the price of higher-priced energy sources thermal and combined cycle.

On the demand side, a more moderate temperature means that energy consumption for climate control decreases both for heating and air conditioning. Also at weekends, with less business activity, energy demand is lower than on weekdays. For all these reasons, at certain times of autumn and spring, when temperatures are neither very low nor very high and there tends to be more wind and rain, the price of electricity is usually at its lowest for the year.