Industrial Flexibility

EDF’s Future Energy Systems R&D team organised a workshop in September on industry flexibility, bringing together key EDF stakeholders.

The workshop included EDF Group R&D colleagues from the Industry Programme and colleagues specialised in flexibility (Programme Commerce et Service) and UK Business Units Wholesale Market Services, EBS, Policy, Dalkia and SAS Energy. The main objective of the workshop was to develop a better understanding of the trends observed in the UK electricity market to maximise the flexibility value and design business models for UK industrial consumers.

Electrification of the UK industry
The workshop is linked to a broader strategic initiative linked to the flagship EDF Group ADEUS Programme (Acceleration of Electrification of Uses), for which the R&D teams Zero Carbon Hubs and Zero Carbon Applications lead a project on industry electrification in the UK. The project investigates the status of electrification of UK industry, the drivers and policies and the market dynamics. It also reviews the key electrification projects completed or planned by UK industrial companies, and the electrification technologies and their suppliers.
Electrification of the processes represents many challenges for industrial consumers, especially due to high electricity prices in the UK. Flexibility can be a powerful solution to maximise electricity consumption at time of low prices and hence maximise the value of electric assets.

Enabling decarbonisation
For several of the electrification projects identified, flexibility is expected to play a role as an enabler of decarbonisation, through on-site generation and storage, load shifting, interruptible loads or shift batching.

Next steps
The insights gathered during the project and the workshop will inform future R&D and
commercial developments on flexibility for industries to accelerate the net zero transition.