INFINITE: Identifying & releasiNg Flexibility IN IndusTrial dEmand’

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Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK

£1,611,320

Nov. 1, 2020

June 30, 2021

A major theme of the UK's low-carbon energy transition is the increased need for flexibility across electricity networks. Flexibility has been proven to be a 'powerful toolkit' for system operators across multiple levels and scales, providing enhanced capabilities to the operators, introducing a direct alternative to capital-intensive network reinforcements and bringing about UK-wide economic and environmental benefits. The COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent shift in day-to-day life activities have revealed the vulnerability of the electricity sector, driven by falling demand, price reduction, sudden halt of investments and surplus of renewable generation, leading to new challenges in power networks. In this setting, the importance for additional actions has been rendered imperative, in order to address those issues and mitigate the COVID-19 effects, while maintaining minimum capital investments.

The '**I**dentifying & releasi**N**g **F**lexibility **IN** **?**ndus**T**rial d**E**mand' (INFINITE) Project will create innovative technologies enabling the facilitation of demand flexibility from the industrial sector. The technology put forward through this project will demonstrate the capability of the UK industrial sector to support demand flexibility. The proposed industrial Flexibility Exchange Service (iFES) hosted within the Flexibility Exchange Platform (FXP) bears capabilities far beyond the present market, as it creates the conditions necessary for industrial consumers to trade flexibility contracts, peer-to-peer energy and flexibility trading with full transparency, automatic matching, and without third-party intervention. The offline assessment, achieved in the initial stages, through Techno-economic Evaluation DSR tool will allow the consortium shape appropriate flexibility services and quantify their economic benefit prior to demonstrating it through the FXP.

INFINITE Project is about commercially-driven R&D. It benefits from real-world track record in developing smart energy networks, though the enhancement of the existing FXP and DSR tool and will display unprecedented capabilities from technical implementation up to market realisation.

The objectives of the consortium are presented hereafter:

* Identification and characterisation of the industrial demand flexibility potential in the UK context, tailored for the UK electricity and industrial sector in particular.
* Development of a methodology for optimal economic exploitation of the identified flexibility.
* Validation of the technical capability, including appropriate control features, of industrial plants to provide a diverse portfolio of flexibility services.

The project is about tangible benefits to industrial consumers, taxpayers and electricity system operators:

* New flexibility players: industrial consumers of all sizes, technologies and associated with different manufacturing processes able to trade flexible energy services.
* New revenue streams: access for participants to a widening spread of local and national energy market segments, in which new revenues streams are emerging steadily. COVID-19 is anticipated to increase uncertainty and the need for more flexibility, potentially further enlarging these markets.
* Avoidance of network reinforcements: participation of industrial consumers in the flexibility market, minimising the need for additional capital expenditure to mitigate network stress.
* More clean energy, leading to improved local air quality, and reduced emissions of greenhouse gases through increased utilisation of renewable generation.