By Kusum Vishwakarma and Antonios Katris
Demand-side management (DSM) refers to technologies, actions and programmes on the demand-side of the energy system. They seek to manage or decrease energy consumption, in order to reduce total energy system expenditures and/or contribute to the achievement of policy objectives such as emissions reduction or balancing supply and demand. It encompasses a range of mechanisms that encourage energy users to reduce their consumption at certain times, thereby making energy demand an integral part of grid balancing. It can reduce costs to consumers and improve the efficiency and security of the entire energy system.
In an energy demand driven world like ours, how we manage the demand for energy is equally important to how much energy we supply. The concept of energy demand management is not new. It has been in place since the 1980’s but it did not receive as much attention as it does today. The level of awareness has increased over the years owing to the policies that were formulated and put into practice.
However, policies are designed in the present but look to deliver outcomes in the future. In an ideal world, the social, political and economic landscape would remain somewhat stable or at least changes would be easily anticipated. In this ideal scenario policymakers would have been able to estimate how socio-economic circumstances may change throughout the life of a policy and design it accordingly. Unfortunately, reality does not match that scenario.
Energy policies often exceed multiple parliamentary terms so they are exposed to a changing socio-economic landscape for a longer period than other, more short-term, policies. And given the significant cost usually attached to them, any wrong decisions could be rather costly. It is important then during the design of energy policies to prepare for as many eventualities as possible. But what is our capacity to prepare for future changes? For example, when the energy efficiency ambitions were published and relevant support schemes for households and businesses were developed, what could have been done to ensure their success even in the event of a major socio-economic change, such as Brexit, which would have the potential to limit the available funding and reduce the impact of any available funds?
This is the focus of our next Energy Conversation. Join us as we discuss with experts from policy, industry and academia “Can we future-proof demand side management programmes?”. We will explore what tools have been at the disposal of the wider policy community to forecast changes in the socio-economic circumstance and introduce appropriate provisions in policies. We will discuss what are the strengths and weaknesses of these tools and ultimately what has been done well and what could be done differently/better when trying to shield energy demand side policies against the changes that the future will, almost inevitably, bring.
To register to attend the Energy Conversation visit this link.