In Ireland, for a dwelling to be eligible for the heat pump grant, the energy performance of the building must not exceed a certain Heat Loss Indicator (HLI) of the building envelope. The high energy efficiency and a technical preassessment ensures the heat pump to work efficiently. The grant thus incentivizes renewable heating investments while first assuring minimum energy performance of the building.

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Transmission and distribution system operators are subject to ongoing investment needs for their capital assets. In the U.S., several electricity and natural gas utilities have made successful use of locally targeted energy efficiency programmes to defer some of these investments in specific areas for a period of time. These projects highlight how the trade-off between demand-side resources and energy infrastructure can be practically solved, with benefits accruing to both the utility and its customers.

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Utilities are responsible for providing customers with reliable and reasonably priced energy services. However, under traditional regulation, utilities are discouraged from investing in cost-effective energy efficiency because it lowers their revenues. An established way to remove this conflict is to break the link between the utility’s revenue and the amount of energy it sells or transmits in order to ensure that the utility recovers its capital expenditures and operating expenses plus an authorized return on investment, no less and no more. In combination with other regulatory mechanisms, such “decoupling” mechanisms can induce utilities to help customers save energy whenever it is cheaper than producing and delivering it.

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Shaping the heat demand and the reduction of demand peaks has the potential to improve network efficiency, integrate renewable energy sources and reduce capital costs within the network. The aim of this case study is to improve the load factor of the households regarding heating, making DH networks more attractive and accelerating their rollout. Capital costs are lowered by reducing required boiler capacity and pipework sizes. Operational costs are reduced by increasing the coverage of the primary plant and reducing heat losses and pumping energy.

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The NEBEF (Block Exchange Notification of Demand Response) mechanism opens the participation of demand response in wholesale electricity markets, mostly through aggregators. While the mechanism is innovative, it does not on its own sustain the aggregators’ business models.

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In Oakland, California, the utility PG&E and the community electricity supplier EBCE have organised a bid to replace an old and polluting peak fossil fuel plant with clean resources. This iconic project demonstrates how demand-side resources can participate in reliability and adequacy objectives while bringing immediate clean air benefits to local communities.

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A Hawaiian programme demonstrates the benefits from electric resistance water heaters on network efficiency. Water heaters not only supply hot water but function as thermal storage devices by delinking the time of demand for and generation of hot water. The US scheme introduces smart water heating as important cost-effective demand response resource.

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Instead of accommodating increasing electricity demand by extending the capacity of the network, the new Social Constraint Management Zones (SCMZ) initiative of Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) involves the procurement of “smart” or “non-wires” solutions from residential and community consumers in congested areas in its network.

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Demand response is key for a renewable-powered future, paving the way for an ongoing integration of variable renewable energies as well as for limiting investments in grid reinforcements and in peak capacity. This case study looks into time-of-use (ToU) tariffs, an important enabler of demand response that incentivize customers to shift their electricity use from high to low demand periods, allowing them to save on energy expenses while benefitting the power system.

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In the States of Nevada and Colorado adopted integrated utility planning rules to maximise the use of distributed energy resources, including energy efficiency and demand response, and anticipate their impact on grid needs. Sound network planning provides opportunities to accelerate the energy transition.

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In the States of Nevada and Colorado adopted integrated utility planning rules to maximise the use of distributed energy resources, including energy efficiency and demand response, and anticipate their impact on grid needs. Sound network planning provides opportunities to accelerate the energy transition.

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U.S. utilities are required to develop appropriate methodologies for evaluating non-wire solutions (NWSs), which are essential for the integration of NWSs to address pressing grid problems. ConEd’s BCA (Benefit-Cost Analysis) Handbook includes many critical elements required for the assessment of demand-side resources.

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The Woningpas is a unique integral digital file of each individual building. The logbook features data on the building: ownership, energy performance, housing quality, certification and more, making it possible to track the evolution of each individual building. Compiling and streamlining the use of data and making it accessible to the public in an anonymised way could influence the effectiveness of policies, simplify administrative procedures, and contribute to a stronger link between the building’s energy performance and its value.

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Passive level building codes were introduced in the Brussels Capital Region for new construction in 2015 and extended to a variety of renovations; this is expected to lead to a transformation of the whole building stock by 2050. Constructing buildings with an energy performance of close-to-passive level is only possible with a design in which energy demand is drastically reduced and the rest is supplied with renewables (RES); in this way, the efficiency first principle is naturally committed to. Brussels has been exemplary in developing the market solutions before introducing a regulation, and thus achieving a very low or no cost premium on passive design.

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The Better Energy Communities is a renovation grant scheme administered by SEAI (Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland) which applies an energy efficiency first approach. The scheme funds local residential and non-domestic energy projects which prioritise energy efficiency measures over renewable and smart technologies. Requirements include an energy performance level corresponding to a Building Energy Rating (BER) of B2 to be achieved after the renovation works. These performance-based requirements are communicated as Fabric First approach: they imply to improve first the performance of the building envelope before replacements of heating systems can be eligible to grants.

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Optimising distributed renewable investment along with energy efficiency seems to be a commonsense approach: it makes sense to size on-building renewable (or other) generation capacity to a demand level that has already been reduced to a cost-efficient minimum. Conditioning public support for distributed energy supply on a predefined minimum level of building energy performance is an implementation of the E1st principle with a large scalability potential. This case is about linking the feed-in tariff in the UK to minimum building standard.

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