Crowdflex

Crowdflex is an Ofgem Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) project that looks to understand how domestic flexibility can be used to help manage the electricity grid. Domestic flexibility refers to households shifting the times they use energy to help balance supply and demand. This helps consumers to reduce their energy costs.

In the first phase of the project, Crowdflex looked at historical data to understand how consumers on time-of-use tariffs responded to price signals by changing their behaviour. These tariffs offer consumers cheaper electricity prices when electricity demand is low, or generation is high. The study found that time-of-use tariffs can help customers reduce their evening peak demand by up to 23%.

In the beta phase of the project, consumers will take part in flexibility trials exploring two kinds of flexibility services:

• Utilisation service: consumers will be paid to turn up or turn down their energy use at certain times
• Availability service: consumers will be paid a regular fixed payment to make their assets available to the grid e.g. to plug in their electric vehicles 

These trials will help to inform thinking in the Control Room on how to manage the grid at different times of day and at different times of the year. The data gathered will provide a better understanding of system challenges like peak demand, network constraints and the potential balancing solutions which distributed domestic assets could provide. 

Recruitment for these trials started in spring 2024, with OVO Energy and Ohme EV offering the service to their customers.

Crowdflex is also being delivered by a consortium from across the energy sector: Centre for Net Zero, ERM, Amazon Web Services (AWS), National Grid Electricity Distribution, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, The Smith Institute and Centre for Sustainable Energy.

The learnings from Crowdflex could deliver multiple benefits, such as:

• Lowering customer bills
• Reducing the costs of grid balancing and network reinforcement
• Enabling greater market participation on the demand side
• Increasing the use of renewable generation and lowering carbon emissions