Should We Regulate for Energy Flexibility?

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.

Key findings:

• Energy flexibility is required for system balancing, but mandating for building energy flexibility capability may have unintended consequences at the single-building level.
• Mandating flexibility capability would be costly and there is uncertainty about how much benefit it could provide at a regional or national scale.
• 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

The ERBE CDT is the EPSRC and SFI Centre for Doctoral Training in Energy Resilience and the Built Environment.