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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.

80 E L EC TR I C AL CONNEC T I ON

AU T UMN 20 1 7