In the News
Ontario Power Authority Inks Demand-Response Deals Dow Jones Clean Technology Investor
April 3, 2008
The Ontario Power Authority is beginning to roll out its program to meet 566 megawatts of demand-response capacity by 2010, signing contracts with two U.S.-based aggregation companies. Toronto-based Ontario Power signed 25 megawatt contracts with publicly traded Boston-based demand-response services provider EnerNOC Inc. and New York-based ConsumerPowerline Inc., according to statements from both companies.
"It's early days in the industry in Ontario," said Sean Brady, director of demand response and industrial programs at Ontario Power, in an interview with Clean Technology Investor. "The latest story is we're just beginning to contract with a number of demand response aggregators now under a new program called DR3."
Under the DR3 program, which details specifically the contractual obligations of the demand-response service providers and where and how the power they're providing will be used, any aggregator could sign up for a 25 MW piece of the total power to be managed, Brady said.
"We're working on the process of coming to contract with everyone who wants to come to contract," Brady said.
For EnerNOC the program is the culmination of groundwork that was laid last year when the company first established its Canadian subsidiary.
EnerNOC Chief Executive Tim Healy said in an interview that the Ontario power market was similar in size to EnerNOC's very first market in New England. "We started out with a 30 MW contract in 2004 in New England and now have over 750 MW under management there," Healy said. "The Ontario market is about the equivalent in size."
The good news for EnerNOC in Canada follows a rough first quarter for the company in which analysts lowered earnings estimates because of price cuts for demand-response programs in certain regions of the U.S.
"In a complicated business or complicated market environments you see that kind of uncertainty that developed in the first quarter of this year," said Healy.