Demand response with Caverion’s digital solutions: saving energy and costs

Demand response with Caverion’s digital solutions: saving energy and costs

Demand response allows to make optimal use of fluctuations in electricity prices and volumes. Caverion helps to materialise the benefits of demand response and save energy and costs.

The volatility of electricity price has been a big concern especially during the past year. Demand response is a method that helps adapt to price fluctuations and enables energy savings. When demand response is utilised, the site reacts to the amount and price of electricity available by reducing or temporarily increasing its electricity consumption.

Big energy savings potential for buildings

For example in Finland, buildings account for around 30% of energy consumption. “One simple and efficient use case for demand response is to remotely and centrally adjust the ventilation in buildings, and focus it on times when there is more electricity available and it is cheaper," says Tuuka Glad, Manager of Digital Solutions at Caverion Finland. “Not all buildings are alike. It is especially important to take the use of the building into account when setting up demand response control functions,” points out Glad.

With its customers, Caverion follows EU’s demand response recommendations: total electricity consumption in buildings should be decreased by 10 percent for 3-4 hours per day.

Industrial demand response has great potential

As industry accounts for more than 40% of Finland’s energy consumption, its potential for utilising demand response is significant. Industrial companies can benefit from demand response, for example, by shifting production in industrial plants to night-time, when electricity demand and prices are typically lower.

"An industrial plant can also participate in the electricity balancing market, for example, by submitting a balancing offer for its balancing capacity and receiving compensation if the offer is used. The production process can also be controlled by scheduling the production of intermediate and storable products outside peak consumption periods or by automating the operation of equipment during the cheapest hours of the day," says Harri Paukkeri, Head of Intelligence Unit at Caverion Industry.

Demand response is here to stay

Demand response will remain necessary also in the future. Energy production is increasingly shifting to renewable energy sources, making electricity production more dependent on weather conditions and accordingly, flexibility of consumption will be vital in the years to come.

“During the last few years, demand response has become commercially viable in a large amount of locations,” says Ida Johansson, Product Lead of Caverion Advisory services. "We are together with our customers constantly working on expanding our demand response related control functions and broadening the amount of customers we are able to provide our demand response solutions to."

Read more about our demand response services for buildings

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