In the News
PLMA Announces 2007 Demand Response Awards Winners May 5, 2008
HOUSTON - (BUSINESS WIRE) - The Peak Load Management Alliance (PLMA) today announced the winners of their 2007 Demand Response Annual Awards. The presentations of the Awards were made at the PLMA Annual Awards Luncheon during the PLMA Spring Conference, "Demand Response: As Used by Resource Planners, ISO's, Regulators and Customers," in Baltimore, Maryland, April 30-May 1, 2008.
Blackouts, shortages, fossil fuel price spikes and more have been big news in the past few years. PLMA was formed as an alliance of organizations of suppliers of electricity, load shedding systems manufacturers, consultants, research groups and trade associations to promote the concepts and technologies of reducing demand for electricity, in response to pricing signals in the marketplace.
"There are a lot of innovative and creative load reduction programs and studies being operated this year," remarked Elliot Boardman, Executive Director of PLMA. "These awards are a way for PLMA to recognize and highlight the best programs."
The Award Winners are identified below, followed by a description of their Demand Response (DR) efforts and why they were chosen for the award.
Outstanding Achievement by a Commercial End-User Award - Marriott Corporation
The Marriott Corporation has received this award for their participation in a variety of demand response programs throughout the country. Marriott has once again proven it strong corporate commitment to energy conservation and the various local communities in which they operate by their participation in three important demand response programs:
* ISO-New England Real-Time Demand Response Program
* Southern California Edison Megawatt Network Program
* San Diego Gas & Electric Capacity Bidding Program
In all three cases, Marriott participates through a partnership with demand response aggregator EnerNoc. With a total of seven hotels enrolled in the two California DR programs, Marriott was able to provide 2,400 kW of peak capacity during times when the electric grid was under strain due to intense heat waves. During events, Marriott utilizes its on-site generators, dims zone lighting and adjusts HVAC set points as necessary. In addition, Marriott employees manually shut down parking structure lighting, guest room door lights, and kitchen and guest ice machines for the duration of the event.
Marriott expects to expand its DR program participation around the country to over 100 hotel properties across 10 states and six DR programs. Marriott's leadership and dedication have proven false the common perception that hotels are too small and diverse in load characteristics to effectively participate in demand response programs. Taken in the aggregate, hotels can and will continue to make a significant contribution to grid reliability. Marriott deserves special recognition for including DR as part of their overall corporate mission to reduce overall energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.
Outstanding Achievement by an Institutional End-User Award - New York University Hospitals Center
The New York University Hospitals Center has received an award for their participation in the New York ISO and Consolidated Edison DR programs. NYU Hospitals Center started participating in the NYISO's DR program through ConsumerPowerline in 2006. In 2007, NYU Hospitals Center added the ConEd DLRP Program to their DR program portfolio. The ConEd program calls for load reductions during periods when specific sub-zones in ConEd's service territory are under constraint. Since that time, they have brought on 11 buildings across the campus for a total of nearly 3 million square feet with nearly 2 MW of demand response capability. During DR events, NYU Hospitals Center operates its emergency generators which deliver the committed load for either program without any impact on the comfort of the occupants. Future plans call for increasing its shed capability to over 5 MW through reductions in air handler speeds, resetting the chilled water routines, switching from electricity to steam, and installing energy management control systems on its new chiller plant. Funds are being provided through the NYSERDA Peak Load Reduction Program to enable many of these measures to be installed and validated.
NYU Hospitals Center's participation in these DR programs proves that institutional facilities are able and willing to make significant impacts toward stabilizing the New York City electric grid. This serves as an excellent example of how institutional facilities can participate in demand response programs nationwide.
Innovative Application of Residential Technology Award - Xcel Energy
PLMA is pleased to announce that Xcel Energy has received an award for its innovation in the use of technology to enhance the effectiveness of its residential Saver's Switch(®) demand response program. In operation for over 18 years, the program is serving nearly 435,000 residential and commercial customers providing more than 400 MW of
peak load reduction on hot summer days. Xcel has maintained an average annual customer retention of 99% and much of that success can be attributed to Xcel's development of the "virtual visit" to participants' homes to identify if switches are working properly. Leveraging their AMI network, they developed a test control strategy and data set from the customer that identified switches no longer providing kW reductions. Eliminating actual site visits to identify maintenance issues has saved ratepayers millions of dollars and has enabled Xcel to bring more than 50 MW of non-performing control loads back on line over the past four years.
Another outstanding aspect of Xcel's program relates to their use of the worldwide web to demonstrate how the program works. Xcel's web tool demonstrates to prospective participants how the program works. The tool was awarded 'Best Energy Online Campaign' by the Web Marketing Association. Xcel's innovative use of technology represents how to sustain a mass market program such as direct load control so that it can be counted on as an effective demand response resource.
Innovative Application of C&I Technology Award - Pacific Gas and Electric
PLMA is pleased to announce that PG&E, in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Global Energy Partners LLC, and Akuacom, has received an award for its innovation in the use of technology to substantially improve the performance of its commercial and industrial demand response programs. The automated demand response (Auto-DR) program is an automation-based communications infrastructure that provides DR program participants with electronic, Internet-based price and reliability signals that are linked to facility energy management control systems or related building and automation process control systems.
Drawing on successful pilot efforts conducted in previous years, the PG&E team was able to recruit and enable a total of 20 large commercial, industrial and institutional customers representing 82 utility service accounts with Auto-DR systems. Over the course of the summer of 2007 when DR events were called by PG&E, Auto-DR participants were able to shed their loads according to the pre-specified plans set up during the period of enablement. Customers were notified of pending events and would always have the capability and knowledge to override the automation system and opt-out of specific DR events if their conditions did not warrant participating. By linking existing advanced control technologies with the Internet, PG&E was able to systematically establish automated load control from PG&E's load dispatch center all the way to the customer end-use loads. This is a breakthrough in the DR industry and could lead to substantial DR program performance if adopted on a more wide-scale basis.
Particularly impressive about the Auto-DR effort was the fact that automation tended to improve the effectiveness of DR program performance. The average load shed during the 2007 DR season for automated CPP customers was 8% while the average shed for a sample of comparable non-automated CPP customers was a negative 1%. PG&E believes that similar patterns will emerge in 2008 when they compare automated demand bidding (DBP) customers to non-automated DBP customers.
Outstanding Program Achievement Award - Energy Curtailment Specialists
PLMA is pleased to announce that Energy Curtailment Specialists, Inc. (ECS) has received the Outstanding Program Achievement Award for 2007 for its efforts in administering the Operation Save New York program, designed to assist the New York state wholesale power grid when electric load demands are forecast to exceed the available supply. When the New York ISO declares a DR emergency, Operation Save New York has the capability to deliver nearly 700 MWs of load reduction.
Particularly noteworthy was ECS' emphasis on "pure" load curtailment, which is accomplished when customers reduce their energy consumption without the use of backup generation. ECS targeted industrial customers for participation in the program, given their outstanding performance capability. ECS' customer portfolio also includes smaller entities that are capable of reducing less than 200 kW to customers that have reduction targets in the 200-500 kW range.
ECS stresses involving the customer at every phase of their participation in the program. For example, ECS works with the customer during the time of enrollment to conduct a detailed audit that identifies load reducing opportunities. Once the customer is recruited and enabled for participating in DR events, ECS continually monitors and updates the customer as to the likelihood that they may be called upon during NYISO events. These steps have led to a high customer satisfaction and a remarkable 99% renewal rate for participation in the program.
Outstanding Outreach Award - Southern California Edison
Southern California Edison has received an award for outstanding outreach efforts in connection with its 2007 Summer Discount Plan Program. Following one of the hottest summers on record in 2006, SCE embarked on an ambitious effort to double the enrollment of its 20-year old Summer Discount Plan Program in time for the summer of 2007.
During the planning process for the 2007 program, SCE recognized that a significant re-thinking of the program design would be necessary to ramp up to the intended implementation goals in such a short period of time. The following techniques were employed:
* SCE began communicating to its 3.9 million residential customers early in the season (February and March) rather than the typical April and May timeframes.
* They went beyond traditional direct mail and reached a wider range of customers through the company website, email messages, and community events.
* Multiple channels were offered for enrollment including phone and online applications. The company offered region-specific marketing themes allowing for recruitment via several different message themes and incentives. SCE employees were deployed as marketing channels to recruit and sign up their friends and neighbors to the program.
* Customers were informed of the program intricacies and the technology details.
* Processing of applications was streamlined through the simplification of application forms.
* SCE notified customers, via the company website, of cycling events in progress.
These efforts paid off as SCE was able to bring on an additional 140,000 customers by December 2007 for a total load reduction potential of 225 MW. SCE efforts serve as a model for how a large utility can rapidly implement a demand response program and be able to achieve its goals.