Page 40 - Gi flipbook May 2018

IGEM NEWS | Young Persons Paper Competition 2017

two fuel sources and heating
appliances 17,520 times per year – FIGURE 5: Supply/demand imbalance
supporting the decarbonisation of
heat in an affordable way, with limited
cost to the customer and limited
behaviour change needed.
Freedom could help deliver a future
energy system that is affordable,
secure and low carbon, while avoiding
the need for costly and disruptive
electricity network reinforcement, as
well as disruptive in-home deep
insulation retrofits and replacement of
hot water central heating.

CUSTOMER PROPOSITION
Freedom introduced the concept of
heat being sold as a service. Initial
findings show that this may be
achievable by the mid-2020s and FIGURE 6: Decarbonised options
indicate that the potential combined
value of fuel arbitrage, domestic
demand side response and frequency
response services could avoid initial
capital outlay. This model requires a
demand aggregator acting on behalf
of heat consumers and sharing the
value from the benefit of flexibility of
using two vectors and the storage in
the gas network, with third party
investors owning and maintaining
heating assets.
The value between purchase of
fuels and sale of heat could grow
further by reducing heat demand in
the home, with the aggregator and
investor incentivised to install could benefit from Freedom. The further explore the potential for smart
insulation measures which pay back solution is suitable for installation and hybrid heating and decarbonised
at no further cost to the consumer. immediate benefit in areas off the gas domestic heat. Combining hybrid
The ‘leakiest’ homes and those grid and where the electricity heating systems with decarbonised
properties with higher occupancy – networks are also most constrained, gases like pure hydrogen cities,
and therefore higher heat demand – with hybridisation of oil and LPG biomethane, BioSNG, synthesis gas
would attract the quickest financial boilers and replacement of direct and hydrogen blends presents an
return from lowering demand in a electric and solid fuel heating affordable, flexible and secure
heat service world. providing financial savings and heat pathway to low carbon, or even zero
Not only is the evolving customer comfort now, as well as being carbon, domestic heat in an
proposition attractive in offering the future-ready for smart control and increasingly integrated energy system.
lowest cost heat with minimal heat as a service. With a higher Using heat pumps under smart
disruption, the flexibility to smartly proportion of fuel poor homes located hybrid controls could provide a
and remotely switch vectors on a off the gas grid, there’s a desperate significant benefit to the potential
variety of signals could enable a need for this to be implemented now. development of hydrogen cities. It
pathway to full domestic heat would allow consumers in these cities
decarbonisation through the balancing CONCLUSIONS AND to benefit from the value of fuel
of renewable gas and renewable NEXT STEPS flexibility while reducing the volume of
electricity, which neither could achieve Freedom will continue trials in all hydrogen required via steam methane
on their own by 2050. 75 homes, using signals to switch reformation and the amount of carbon
And it’s not just ‘on-grid’ homes that between both appliances and to dioxide requiring storage or utilisation.
Follow on projects are now being
Using heat pumps under smart hybrid developed to investigate heat-as-a-
service, real-time DSR, the use of
controls could provide a significant different hybrid appliances and
technologies in non-domestic
benefit to the potential development of properties, as well as opportunities to

hydrogen cities deliver fully-optimised smart hybrid
heat networks. ■

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