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Manage household electricity
demand with AS/NZS
4755-compliant products
Standards Australia received the
content for the following article
from experts of the technical
committee EL-054
Remote
demand management of electrical
products
.
D
emand management is about
matching electricity demand to
generation output (rather than the
other way around) and is not a new concept.
A well known example is the controlled load
water heater, where the utility offers a low
energy tariff in return for the right to switch
the load on and off. Apart frommanaging
peak demand, this is a cheap and reliable
form of energy storage for the grid.
Standards Australia’s committee, EL-
054, which covers demand management
standards for various appliances and now
battery storage systems, is an important
piece in the smart-grid jigsaw. Under this
committee, standards for the operating
instructions during demand management
events for air conditioners, electric water
heaters and swimming pool pumps have
been published. The most recent addition
to this series is a standard on demand
management for battery storage systems, the
first of its kind in the world.
Tomorrow’s grid needs more flexibility
than ever, as increased use of renewable
energy sources like wind and solar means
generation output is more ‘intermittent’ and
variable. Water heating time-shifting will
continue to be an excellent example of a
flexible load. Swimming pool filtration and
pumping can also be time-shifted. The
home cooling load, which has contributed
so much to network peak demand
and tariff increases, cannot be shifted
from hot days, but it can be reduced by
management of air conditioners.
The phenomenal growth of rooftop
PV has introduced a new factor into grid
management, and the expected surge in
home battery storage and electric cars will
complicate matters even more. Howwill all
this be managed?
We could leave it to electricity pricing
alone, but research has shown that customers
will stay with flat tariffs unless they can
manage the risk of high prices. Receiving a
text saying that the price has jumped to $2
per kWh, would not overjoy any customer,
but especially if they’re at work with all their
appliances switched on. Some appliance
manufacturers offer a smart phone app that
allows customers to switch things down
or off remotely, but after a while this also
becomes tedious. For most of us, life is too
busy to constantly check electricity prices.
Suddenly, the idea of letting a trusted third
party manage your appliances, PV and
batteries becomes very attractive, especially if
they pay you for the privilege.
This management of appliances is made
possible by the AS/NZS 4755
Demand
response capabilities and supporting
technologies for electrical products
series.
AS/NZS 4755-compliant products
have a standard interface (usually an RJ45
socket) to connect to an external “demand
response enabling device” (DRED), which
communicates with a “remote agent”
authorised by the customer – the electricity
distributor, the retailer or a load aggregator.
The DRED passes instructions, or demand
response modes (DRMs) to the end-use
devices: DRM 1 “turn off” (i.e. minimise load
but maintain power to electronic controls),
DRM 2 or 3 “operate but at reduced load” or
DRM 4 “turn on even if user-set controls do
not call for operation right now.” DRMs 1, 2,
and 3 are needed when the grid is load-
constrained, and DRM 4 helps when the
renewable energy available (from the home’s
PV or the grid) exceeds the load.
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