Leveraging enhanced consumer engagement to achieve demand response and flexibility in an Indian energy community

Demand flexibility is a promising resource for demand-side management. Globally, with increased renewable penetration and electrified loads, utilities are developing robust frameworks to aggregate flexible loads for Demand Response and enhance grid decarbonisation. This research concentrates on a demand response programme, titled ‘Urja Arpan’ (Energy Sacrifice), implemented in New Delhi, India, and led by the utility company TATA Power Delhi Distribution Limited. This novel concept focuses on enhancing consumer engagement within an energy community, comprising residential, commercial, and industrial consumers, to alleviate grid strain and optimise network utilisation through demand flexibility. The DR programme currently involves 67,000 residential consumers and 24,600 commercial and industrial (C&I) consumers. The utility used smart meter data and program enrollment records to analyse participation trends and quantify peak load reduction during 2022–2024. The DR events achieved a flexible demand of 7.69 MW in 2022, 85 MW in 2023, and 560 MW in 2024, showing a remarkable increasing trend over the years. This demand response program offered no incentives or subsidies to residential, commercial, or industrial consumers for providing demand flexibility, a unique aspect of this work. Instead, every participant was nominated for a prize drawing after every DR event. The primary driving factors for participating consumers are energy savings and an interest in sustainable energy and environmental protection. The results demonstrate that community-based, non-monetary DR models can achieve utility-scale flexibility and could offer a sustainable pathway for decarbonising the grids.