Dublin, Ireland and Belfast, U.K. --- (METERING.COM) --- August 31, 2010 - By 2020 demand will play an active part in the process of system balancing and market price formation in Ireland’s single electricity market, according to a new consultation paper from the island’s regulatory authorities.

This will occur through a combination of autonomous response to expected market prices, dynamic response to market prices over a range of timescales and the inclusion of some dispatchable demand (and distributed generation) in the centralized processes of price formation and dispatch.

The paper, which sets out a demand side vision for 2020, forms part of a program to develop a strategic demand response program for the island of Ireland, and is aimed at assessing different demand side options and identifying policy recommendations to realize the vision.

According to the paper, by 2020 and beyond Ireland’s electricity system will be characterized by high levels of wind generation whose output profile will become a dominant driver of the electricity system. As a consequence, the key times (of peak “effective demand”) within each day will become far less predictable, at least more than one or two days ahead. Further, it is expected that new forms of load such as electric vehicles or heat pumps, if not influenced by time‐of‐day pricing, will increase the magnitude of peak demand.

These changes are a key driver of the need for and the value of demand side activity in the all island market, the paper says.

Based on the assessment, the paper offers a provisional categorization of demand side measures as follows:

• High value – energy efficiency, smart metering, industrial and commercial demand side response.
• Medium value – home and office automation, electric vehicles, aggregation of distributed generation.
• Low value – consumer behavioral change, electricity storage.
• Limited value – heat pumps, microgeneration.

The consultation is open until October 18, 2010.