Peak Shaving Solution
Peak shaving is a strategy that involves proactively managing overall demand to eliminate short-term demand spikes. “Peak shaving” is often confused with “load shifting”, which is a different, though related concept. Load shifting is the relocation of power usage away from high-load periods (namely, peak hours) towards low-load hours (off-peak hours).
The purpose of peak shaving is to reduce the short-term peaks in demand, thus allowing for smaller generation and transmission plants to be used.
The benefit of this approach is that the spikes in demand can be flattened out reducing the need for expensive peaking or reserve generation plants and transmission upgrades.
While peak shaving can be accomplished by using conventional power sources, it is often accompanied by the use of energy storage systems. Energy storage systems have become increasingly competitive in the last decade and are now able to provide more cost-effective solutions for peak shaving than conventional power sources.