IEA 4E report on demand flexibility references Mercury

A new report on demand flexibility protocols, commissioned by the IEA 4E Efficient, Demand Flexible Networked Appliances platform (EDNA), references Mercury's work on interoperability.

IEA 4E is a technology collaboration programme supporting 14 countries and the European Commission. Its reports help governments shape policy on energy-efficient and flexible appliances.

The report reviews how grid operators, aggregators and home energy systems send flexibility signals to devices. It looks at policy in the UK, California, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France and the EU.

It notes that Mercury is developing functional and performance specifications that sit on top of OpenADR. The aim is interoperability that works through the protocol, not alongside it.

The report's wider findings match our approach. It recommends harmonising functional requirements. It calls for requirements by device class and names robust, centralised certification with physical testing as the most important enabler of real interoperability.

As the report puts it, specifications do not guarantee interoperability “without robust, preferably centralised certification and testing”.

Read IEA 4E’s demand flexibility protocols here.

‍