With recent changes in the Australian Energy Market, organisations are engaging more with their energy use and costs, and finding new opportunities to reduce this usage and cost.
Download the full report, Best of Both Worlds: Renewable Energy and Load Flexibility for Australian Business Customers, below.
Key findings
- Organisations from diverse sectors can achieve savings of up to 33.3% of current energy costs on top of signing a corporate renewable PPA, by implementing demand response.
- Shifting seasonal operating hours to deliver higher consumption during lower price hours of day has a modest benefit.
- High-price events are generally relatively short-lived. More significant cost savings were observed when the organisation was able to shut down a larger portion of the plant for shorter periods - typically two hours.
- Where higher levels of on-site generation are possible, resulting in more than 10% export to the grid, better overall energy cost reductions are achieved.
- On-site generation also creates the flexibility to bid into the wholesale market during high-price events for market customers.
About this report
Organisations are shifting how they buy power, to achieve savings and reduce long term risk. In order to do so, they are increasingly entering into corporate renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) - an agreement made between a buyer and a power generator for the purchase of renewable electricity, at a fixed rate.
This increase in the signing of PPAs works in conjunction with the growth and adoption of demand management through Australia, especially throughout large energy customers and organisations.
The Institute for Sustainable Futures' research, conducted in partnership with Flow Power and WWF, assessed the potential savings created by demand response for wholesale customers in Victoria, over a 12 month period.
The research shows potential energy cost savings of 2.3% to 33.3% over a 12 month period, dependant on the type of customer involved and the type of demand response deployed. More importantly, it shows that more significant savings were achievable where an organisation shuts down a large scale of plant for a shorter period of time - for example, two hours.
Therefore, implementing demand management can provide an organisation with an on-going capacity to manage exposure to high price events.
Prendergast, J., Dwyer, S., Briggs, C., Morris, T., Dunstan, C., Best of Both Worlds: Renewable Energy and Load Flexibility for Australian Business Customers. Report prepared by ISF for Flow Power and supported by WWF-Australia.