The effect of Demand Response and wind generation on electricity investment and operation. ESRI Research Bulletin 2019/07

Concerns over climate change have led to an increase in renewable energy usage, particularly in the electricity sector. Given that the output from many renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar, increases and decreases throughout the course of a day or week, there is a greater requirement for the rest of the electricity system to behave flexibly as renewable energy increases. Traditionally, electricity demand was considered fixed and power generation units, such as coal, gas and oil units, varied their supply to match supply and demand in realtime. However in recent years, there has been a new focus on the potential for electricity demand itself to become flexible or responsive by means of households and businesses increasing their electricity usage at times of high availability, and decreasing their usage at times of low availability