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Tesla Powerwall 3 Rebate now Extended Until June 30th
Posted 21 Dec
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For solar and non-solar owners on a time-of-use (TOU) tariff, both peak shaving and load shifting can help you get the most out of your energy and help reduce your electricity bill costs. To help with solar and battery investments, peak shaving and shifting enables faster paybacks and greater rewards.
What is Peak Shaving? Peak Shaving is a method of reducing peak electricity demand by instead using battery storage or load control to help reduce spikes in usage during high-demand periods.
What is Load Shifting? Load/Peak Shifting refers to the process of moving electricity usage from peak times to off-peak times to also help reduce usage during peak periods.
FEATURE |
PEAK SHAVING |
LOAD SHIFTING |
| Use Case | To reduce peak demand spikes |
To move usage to cheaper times |
| Result |
Help reduce overall grid demand | Avoid using expensive grid electricity |
| Benefits |
Reduce your overall electricity bill |
Rely on cheaper energy, reducing your bill |
| Grid impact |
You help reduce grid stress | Helping balance demand with supply |
Peak shaving is an energy management strategy that is used to help reduce peak electricity demand by limiting or delaying usage during high-demand periods.
A peak period is when electricity is at its highest demand and costs, usually around 5-9pm during the week when everyone comes home from work and uses their appliances.
Usually, solar and battery owners will have automated load control systems that can help supply self-generated power during peak periods to help avoid using the expensive grid power during peak periods.
The goal of peak shaving is to reduce the highest spikes in electricity usage, lowering demand charges and reducing the overall strain on the grid.
Load Shifting refers to moving your electricity usage from peak periods to times when electricity is not spiking in demand.
Instead of reducing overall usage, load shifting looks at when the appliance is used to help avoid using that expensive grid power.
Households with and without solar can use load shifting to enable greater savings, where you can use higher-consuming appliances during off-peak periods, or completely offset it with solar generation.
An example would be timing your washing schedule or pool pump to run during off-peak hours rather than when energy is its most expensive. The appliance is still running, it's just all about the timing.
Peak Demand & Load Shifting Diagrams - Elite Power Group
In the world of solar and battery, peak shaving works by utilising the solar generation and charging the battery up during low demand periods, and either relying on it instead of the grid during peak periods, or discharging it for a great return.
By using that stored solar energy, you reduce your grid power consumption when it is most expensive, which is the biggest contributor to high energy bills when on a time of use tariff.
Systems like GoodWe, Fronius, and Sungrow offer peak shaving features to automatically avoid peak period consumption with smart electricity management.
Battery brands like GoodWe offer a peak shaving mode where when the property demand is greater than the import limit, the battery will discharge the difference to cover the additional demand. In the same set period, if the consumption is lower than the import limit, the grid will charge the battery.
For solar-only households, we highly recommend using as many of your appliances during solar hours instead of just relying on cheap exported feed-in tariff rewards, as self-consumption will benefit you way more.
One of the biggest mistakes we see new solar owners do is not shift when they use their appliances. If a solar owner doesn't use their appliances during solar hours, they miss out on consuming their own free energy, and end up paying for the same peak period grid electricity they were paying before the system.
Combining solar systems with load shifting is a strategic way to maximise your solar production and investment.
comparing peak shaving vs. load/peak shifting
Peak shaving is reducing your demand during peak periods to avoid using as much peak period costs as possible.
Load shifting is moving when you use your electricity from a peak period to a cheaper off-peak or solar period.
Because every appliance has its own unique consumption, not every appliance is equally suited for load shifting. For those wanting to practice load shifting, shifting household loads to the middle of the day helps reduce grid dependence and reduces peak period consumption.
Load shifting works by offsetting higher-consuming appliances to a time when energy is cheaper and more readily available. This can be done with timers (commonly seen with appliances like pool pumps), or a simple change in lifestyle to accommodate it.
But what appliances are best for load shifting? Below is a list of appliances that are best-suited for load shifting in Australia:
Courtesy of Curtis Adams on Pexels.
For non-solar owners, load shifting is mostly effective on Time-of-Use (TOU) tariffs, where electricity is more expensive during peak periods and cheaper during off-peak periods.
Households on a TOU plan will be able to take advantage of dynamic pricing unlike those under a single-rate tariff which remain the same throughout the day.
Even for households on other tariffs like single-rate, solar and battery will still provide valuable benefits. For example, after you come home from work, you'll instantly start using the stored solar energy from the day, which was also sent to the grid for export credits.
Demand control refers to when electricity is automatically managed to prevent high demand spikes during peak periods, rather than manually reducing overall usage like peak shaving.
For solar and battery equipped properties, demand control can temporarily reduce grid consumption, manage battery charging and discharging, and bottleneck appliance loads all in order to reduce energy demand spikes.
Energy management like demand control work alongside peak shaving and load shifting to help improve electricity efficiency and reduce costs.
Demand control vs. load shifting: Load shifting refers to moving when a load consumes, and demand response is an automatic process that reduces consumption as much as possible during peaks.
Demand control vs. demand response: Demand response (DR) is when a customer volunteers to reduce their usage during peak periods to help lower grid strain.
Courtesy of AS Photography on Pexels.
BYD Battery-Box and Fronius GEN24 Inverter
On rare occasions, electricity supply will exceed demand, and a negative price event will occur where energy providers don't charge you to use grid energy, instead they pay you through credits. Oversupply events can happen on sunny and windy days where demand is not as high as expected and is outweighed with supply.
Accessing wholesale electricity prices with providers like Amber, customers can get paid to charge their battery, and then discharge later when electricity prices are back to normal.
Of all the terms – peak shaving, load shifting, demand control and response, and negative price events all share the same goal of using energy more efficiently. For most households, the biggest savings and most practical strategy is load shifting and self-consumption with solar.
Overall, as we strive for a renewable and energy efficient future, Australia’s infrastructure and household technology will continue to
improve.
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