In its recently published study “L’effacement de consommation électrique en France”, (“Erasure of Electricity consumption in France”) ADEME estimated that 70% of the industry’s technical and economically profitable sources are concentrated in four sectors: metallurgy, mechanics, chemistry and the paper industry.
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Demand response mechanisms consist in temporarily reducing the extraction of electricity from a site by modulating or interrupting processes.
The objective of demand response is not strictly speaking, according to Ademe, “to achieve energy savings but to consume at the right time in order to bring more flexibility to the electricity grid faced with significant peaks in demand, as well as the variability of production from renewable energies”.
In its recently published study “L’effacement de consommation électrique en France”, ADEME assessed the technical and economically profitable sources for different economic sectors of industry and mass distribution and identified the obstacles and levers associated with this activity. It shows that 70% of the deposit is concentrated in industry and in particular in four sectors: metallurgy, mechanics, chemistry and the paper industry.
Demand response of electricity consumption therefore has a significant potential in industry; the tertiary sectors studied represent a more limited potential due to a more diffuse deposit (smaller sites). “There are few technical barriers to the development of this kind of flexibility. The main obstacles are rather economic and organisational, as the company must agree to adapt its production apparatus… in order not to produce”.
Following a comparison of the regulatory contexts around switch-off in France with those in the United Kingdom, Japan and two American states, the study shows that “the context is relatively incentive-based in France: many mechanisms integrating switch-offs have already been developed to manage the supply/demand balance of the electricity system”, before concluding that “the overall French regulatory framework is more advanced than those in the other countries considered”.
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Source: L’effacement de consommation electrique en France – Ademe