Aggregate Industries, a leading player in the construction and infrastructure industries, has begun a pioneering partnership with Open Energi – which has just launched its Dynamic Demand 2.0 platform. Dynamic Demand 2.0 uses artificial intelligence to connect, aggregate and optimise distributed energy assets, including industrial equipment and battery storage systems, to help businesses radically reduce their cost of consuming power.
The innovative technology enables businesses to “stack” demand flexibility value streams and determines which assets to use and when to maximise savings without impacting performance. This will allow for the optimising of consumption to avoid peak price periods and improve operational efficiency.
Donna Hunt, head of Sustainability at Aggregate Industries, said: “Aggregate Industries has pioneered the use of Open Energi’s technology since we first started working together in 2012. But we know we have only scratched the surface in terms of the value that demand flexibility can offer both our business and wider society. Dynamic Demand 2.0 offers us greater control and visibility of our energy demand, helping us to save energy, cut costs and play a more active role in creating a sustainable energy future. The more businesses and industries that collectively manage their demand in this way, the more impactful we can be.”
David Hill, commercial director at Open Energi, explains: “It is now possible to measure and monitor machine behaviour at such a granular level that we can identify invisible flexibility in the way we consume power. Many industrial processes - such as pumping, heating and cooling - have inherent energy storage, and when you combine these with on-site generation, battery storage and EV charging it is possible to take sites off-grid for periods of the day with no impact on business operations. This is incredibly empowering for consumers, but identifying which asset to switch or dispatch and in which order to reduce costs and carbon is a very complex problem to solve, which is where we come in.
“We believe this platform puts within reach a 100% renewable energy system, balanced by real-time demand flexibility, where the cost of that input is data alone. You begin to see a future which has a very low cost of operation and a future in which consumers are in control of how they use energy.”
