Should We Regulate for Energy Flexibility?

<p dir="ltr">This poster was presented at the annual ERBE-LoLo Colloquium in 2023 to the flexibility and resilience category. Following a 6-month secondment with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), a refreshed stance was proposed on the "usefulness" of legislating for energy flexibility in buildings. The poster summarises some of the potential impacts and some of the methods that a flexibility indicator or target could have. Initial findings from this work helped shape the discussion and context of the PhD project.</p><p dir="ltr">Key findings:</p><ul><li>Energy flexibility is required for system balancing, but mandating for building energy flexibility capability may have unintended consequences at the single-building level.</li><li>Mandating flexibility capability would be costly and there is uncertainty about how much benefit it could provide at a regional or national scale.</li><li>A smart building rating may be a cheaper way of incentivising flexibility in buildings but needs careful balancing between its goals and a robust method of quantification</li></ul><p dir="ltr">The <a href="https://erbecdt.ac.uk/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">ERBE CDT</a> is the EPSRC and SFI Centre for Doctoral Training in <b>Energy Resilience and the Built Environment</b>.</p>