Npower trials a smarter grid

Electricity provider npower today signed a contract with grid-management firm RLtec in its first step towards providing a smarter grid and potentially allowing it to save thousands of tonnes of CO2.

The trial of the "dynamic demand" technology will allow npower to minutely adjust the electricity usage of particular customer appliances, mainly white goods, without switching them off, in order to help it balance the supply and demand of power on the grid.

Until now utilities have had to provide the grid with much more power than it actually needs to deal with peaks in demand, such as at TV advert breaks.

But npower now hopes it will be able to significantly decrease this unnecessary extra capacity by taking electricity from elsewhere in the grid – crucially without affecting the performance of appliances.

Bob Jackson, carbon savings manager at npower, said: "Dynamic demand has the potential to significantly reduce the amount of carbon emissions – so these trials with domestic customers are very important and we hope they will show the impact that this technology could have in the UK and around the world."

The two-year trial is the first Demonstration Action to be approved under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) legislation and will contribute towards npower's carbon reduction obligations.

It is the first revenue generating contract for RLtec, which is a subsidiary of investment fund Low Carbon Accelerator Limited.

Andrew Howe, chief executive of RLtec, said: "The technology has the potential to create a virtual power station, and if widely used in the UK could eliminate the need for carbon emitting coal-fired balancing stations and save up to two million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year."

Customers will have to agree to be part of the trial and have dynamic demand technology fitted to their appliances.