Demand Side Reduction

	Click the Button to go back to Resource
	Click the Button to go to Supply & Demand Matching

Employment of demand side reduction techniques can offset the volume of MW installed.

In the case of this project, a typical South of Scotland Housing Association House was used for the simulation study. This is a 3 bed roomed council dwelling with minimal loft insulation and single glazing throughout.

ESP-r simulation software was used to predict the energy requirement to heat the house to acceptable comfort levels using Glasgow climate data.

The building fabric of the house was then improved through the use of insulation for both floor and loft and the installation of double-glazing through out. The heating system used was ideal control, i.e. the heating came on to maintain temperature levels above the minimum comfort level as described in the program. The heating system was programmed to be active between the hours of 7:00 and 9:00 in the morning and between 16:30 and 23:00 at night. A reduction of 28% in the peak requirement, which occurred at 5:07pm, was achieved. This reduction refers to the thermal requirement of the domestic sector in Lochgilphead.

It was assumed that the energy reduced as a result of improving the building fabric of this typical SSHA house could be factored across the complete range of Lochgilphead dwelling. While it is appreciated that this introduces an error into the calculations, it was difficult to estimate the effect of building fabric improvements with any greater degree of accuracy.

From the census information it was found that the domestic sector represented 54.6% of the energy consumption in the village. Of this, 60% is consumed as a result of space heating. The reduction in demand by 28% therefore represents a peak reduction of the total thermal requirement of 9.1%.

This was deducted from the thermal requirement for the village of Lochgilphead and the resulting figure used as the target peak demand.