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Demand management trial set for national roll-out

A demand management trial using AI to shift energy usage to different times of day will be rolled out nationally, after a successful trial with South Australian commercial and industrial customers found that significant savings were on offer.

Origin has partnered with UK-based start-up Tempus Energy to trial its cloud-based software with large Origin customers in South Australia, including Adelaide Oval and Adelaide University.

Through the integration of Tempus’ cloud-based technology, the trial customers have been running assets like industrial air conditioning more flexibly, predicting higher price periods and then shifting non-critical load into times of the day when prices are lower.

Tempus analysis showed that price was very strongly correlated to carbon intensity with high pool prices signalling periods when carbon intensive generators are working. Avoiding these periods has also helped to lower the carbon footprint of these customers achieving carbon savings of up to 21% on assets where the technology is being used.

Origin Executive general manager Energy Supply and Operations Greg Jarvis said: “During the trial, we’ve seen the Tempus algorithms drive a shifting of customer’s usual load to a different time of day in response to predicted high price periods.

“Across all trial customers, the trial has successfully shifted more than 200MWh of load to reduce their cost and carbon emissions.”

“Expanding this trial is one way how we are helping our customers find smarter ways to improve how they use energy.”

Origin is a founding member of Free Electrons, a global start-up accelerator where start-ups work with the world’s leading utilities and Tempus was in the 2017 intake.

Tempus Energy founder and CEO Sara Bell said, “We’re delighted with the results achieved in South Australia and to be continuing our partnership with Origin to roll-out this trial nationally.

 

Image sourced from Shutterstock cc: ymgerman

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