demand response

The newest trend in utility/customer relationships is the growing number of Consumer Experience Manager (CEM) positions that are appearing in utilities. What is a consumer experience? Quite simply, the interactions that a consumer can have with a utility through any number of channels. The traditional utility channels for consumer...[read more]

A few weeks ago a member of the Green Light Distrikt community, Sarah Jayanthi from Solar One, kindly invited me to a panel discuss on “The Value of a Negawatt.” Negawatt power “is a theoretical unit of power representing an amount of energy (measured in watts) saved. The energy saved is a direct result of energy...[read more]

Topics like "Smart Grid" and "smart meters" have practically become cocktail party conversation, but "demand response" can evoke spirited debate as well.“Demand response” is a topic that piques my interest. As a national business development manager for Siemens Energy, I work closely with utilities all over the United States facilitating...[read more]

Telecommunications networks are similar to electricity networks – no one gives a thought to them until they aren’t working as expected.  The network infrastructure to support the data communications requirements of the Smart Grid must be upgraded and expanded to handle additional traffic, and in particular traffic for new market...[read more]

Most traditional systems for distributing electricity are severely limited by a mismatch between available power and fluctuating consumer demand for power. Often, this results in wasted energy during light load times, and insufficient power during peak times—in the worst cases, leading to brownouts and blackouts.[read more]

What distinguishes DES from other storage technologies, and what makes DES so potentially important to the smart grid, is its ability to provide a virtual form of demand side management. DES provides virtual DMS by effectively replacing the electricity consumer with a battery. A grid operator wheels power to the DES battery when it is convenient for the grid operator to do so. This will generally be during off-peak hours when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. The traditional electricity consumer no longer has a relationship with the grid, other than as a source of back-up power. The consumer’s relationship is with the DES battery, which provides the consumer with power when the consumer wants it from a source that is at its farthest right next door.[read more]

Results from a pilot project in Oklahoma show that having a wider TOU price gap will encourage more peak-period conservation and shifting of electricity use, a finding that contrasts with the experience in Ontario, where the price gap and the market signal it sends is very weak. In the Oklahoma trial, pricing ranged from 4.2 cents (...[read more]

Does the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) really want to go down this path? Do they really think that faking a consumer cartel will help make wholesale power markets work more efficiently? Consumers come to any market in pretty direct competition with each other. Suppliers are offering their goods and I would like to buy as...[read more]

Proxy Demand Response (DR) is a creative program that can be used to offset the need to build expensive peaker plants and help with the management of renewable sources of energy that are intermittent in nature, like wind and solar.  While the wholesale market has been operating in other states and later this year in California, the...[read more]

The entire electricity grid is undergoing innovations, and one interesting change is occurring in electricity markets and the way we value electricity consumption.  The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) is the not-for-profit corporation charged with operating the majority of California’s high-voltage wholesale power...[read more]

Photo credit mckaysavage Despite a lot of talk and some high profile trials the day we have ubiquitous full Smart Grids is still a long way off. I attended the Smart Grids Europe conference in Amsterdam this week. It was a great conference, I met a ton of interesting people and had some fascinating conversations. I can’t help...[read more]

Don’t you just love acronyms?  I do, which is a good thing since I write the Smart Grid Dictionary, which is loaded with them.  Acronyms are shorthand for common phrases, and there are certainly plenty of them in the Smart Grid business.    Imagine my delight when I encountered a new acronym last week – BUGS....[read more]

Smart cities need smart buildings connected to a smart grid. The business opportunities associated with Demand Response, smart buildings, and smart grid have been gaining a lot of attention recently, with articles just last week in The Economist and Barron’s. Last summer a Cisco executive caused some ripples by forecasting that the...[read more]

KP readers know the answer to that question: reducing peak demand, load shifting across time, better capacity utilization. But there’s a bit more to it, as you can see in the New York Times article on Idaho Power’s rebates to their customers for reducing their irrigation during peak hours, as well as allowing for direct load control...[read more]

The Smart Grid industry is a veritable tower of Babel when it comes to terminology, jargon, and acronyms.  There are several reasons for this starting with the number of domains that comprise the Smart Grid.  The conceptual model for the Smart Grid maps out Generation, Transmission, and Distribution, plus Markets, Operations,...[read more]