EirGrid launches competition to identify a company who will help it reduce electricity costs for householders

EirGrid has launched a competition to identify a company who will pay householders to reduce their energy consumption at high demand times. This is one of the first times a transmission system operator (TSO) has run such a competition in Europe for residential customers.

This pilot project will benefit up to 1500 householders, who will see their annual electricity bills cut by up to €100 by participating in this scheme.
The competition is open to companies who will work with homeowners and EirGrid to provide a service known as “demand response”.

Demand response enables electricity customers temporarily reduce their electricity consumption in response to requests from EirGrid, resulting in savings on their bills. In Ireland, businesses and industry can already do this; however, it has not been available to homeowners until now. The goal for EirGrid is to manage demand on the national grid and give homeowners more control over their electricity bills.

Fintan Slye, Chief Executive, EirGrid, said: “This is a really exciting development in the electricity market. We often hear about “Smart Grids” and their benefits – this is it in reality – technology innovation that puts money back in people’s pockets. Any measure that helps reduce overall demand on the grid, while not affecting our daily lives at work and at home, can only be a good thing in the long term.”

EirGrid will select the competition winner based on a number of criteria including the ability to deliver the project targets, the quality of the customer engagement programme, cost competitiveness and the ability to increase capacity after the pilot phase.