Energy storage and the ability to balance supply and demand at any given time is central to
the successful evolution of a low carbon electricity system to allow for grid flexibility and
stability and to cope with a variability of supply from intermittent renewable generation.
Community and Residential Energy Storage (CRES), although an emerging segment within
energy storage systems has the potential to deliver significant benefits including the
smoothing of peaks in electricity demand and voltage support with a global market for
systems in this space predicted to grow from $19.2 million in 2012 to more than $872 million
in 2022. To date the majority of CRES technologies have centered on Local Generation
notably solar with commercial uptake limited principally by product cost & technical viability
with some of the challenges recognized as efficiency, response rates and thermal management.
To address the need for improved management of demand at a domestic level, ChargeSync
seek to develop a cost effective, intelligent energy storage system with demand management
capability that will overcome the main barriers associated with other forms of CRES. Aimed
specifically at the domestic market, the proposed ChargeSync smart box will predict,
coordinate and optimise mains energy use within homes, deploying stored energy when
required and reducing peak loads and offering a plug-and-play solution for existing AC
circuits. The system will also have the ability to coordinate many storage devices together,
optimising domestic energy use on the grid. Representing a key step change in energy
intelligence and storage, the project has the ability to deliver savings, of up to £175 per
household per annum (1/3 off the cost of the average electricity bill), improving resilience at a
domestic level for short periods as well as providing improved demand flexibility.