LEARNING CENTER

What is Demand Response (DR)?
Demand Response (DR) is the process of customers responding to price signals to reduce their electricity consumption during times of high prices in the wholesale electricity markets, such as during periods of critical congestion in the electricity grid.  This response can be manual and totally automated.

Why now?
Historically, there have been time-of-use electricity rates that had slightly higher rates during certain hours of non-holiday weekdays, all year long.  These were based on the fact that customer usage was higher during certain times of day, every weekday.

The bigger problem is for a relative few hours on only a smaller number of days – under 100 hours a year.  There was no effective way to communicate these events because they were relatively unpredictable and customers had limited ability to react even if they learned of them when they happened.  During these hours, the price can be fifty times the normal hourly price and system reliability can be jeopardized.

The convergence of many changes is making it vital and feasible now to use DR to specifically target these few hours.

• Shrinking Capacity: On a national basis, electricity generation and transmission capacity was thirty percent above anticipated peak needs (reserves).  Over the last ten years, these have been steadily shrinking because new capacity has not been created as fast as our use of electricity has grown.

• Policy: Federal legislation in 2005 made DR a national policy for the first time in history.  In December 2007, President Bush signed legislation tasking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to develop a policy on demand response for national implementation.  The association of state regulators recently established a policy to promote DR on a national basis.

• Restructuring:  The generation and transmission portion of our electricity grid was previously regulated by individual states.  Generation has been largely deregulated, allowing generators to sell their electricity to whoever wants it and will pay the highest price.  The transmission system is inter-state commerce and is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  Transmission and system reliability is managed by Independent System Operators.  In the case of the Mid-Atlantic, it is PJM.  PJM manages the largest electricity market in the world.

 

Under this restructuring, PJM now will pay the same price for a kilowatt curtailed as it will for a kilowatt generated.  That option did not exist before.  They both help meet total demand in the same way,  An electricity user can now be paid cash in the same way a generator is paid in helping satisfy system demand. At times of critical peak prices, that can be attractive.

• Deregulation of Retail Markets: In some states, electricity sales directly to users have been deregulated.  Competitive Service Providers can buy electricity from generators and sell it directly to you, paying the transmission and local distribution system to deliver it to your home or business.  These companies have a higher motivation to reward you for managing your electricity use at times of exceedingly high prices in the wholesale system.

• Global warming concern:  The environmental impact of building transmission lines across our landscape and the air quality impact of running electricity generation plants are getting strong negative attention.  The historic “Not in my backyard” opposition is shifting to “Not on this planet”.  This opposition is making it more difficult to get transmission and generation capacity built, further reducing reliability reserves as usage continues to grow.

• New communication technologies:  The ability to communicate directly to business and residential usages on a real-time basis reacting to changes ion the hourly wholesale price of electricity is now cost-effective because of advances in the Internet and in wireless communication systems.

• Enabling devices:  Very sophisticated but affordable advances have emerged in metering equipment and in automated devices to help users react to price signals on an automated basis.  

 

Who can do it?
All customers, from small residential to the largest industrial, using different solutions

How can I do it?
The kind of actions can include:

1. Taking part of your electric load off the system by running your own secondary/emergency generation equipment.
2. Changing the scheduled operation of equipment that uses a lot of electricity.
3. Turning off unnecessary lighting or other electrical loads.
4. Replacing/upgrading inefficient equipment/lighting.
5. Installing enabling technology to make the process of responding to DR signals more automatic.

How do I benefit?
Under some programs, you can earn cash payments for the electrical load that you curtail or take off the system.  Under others, taking advantage of the provisions of the specific electricity rates offered by your electric utility, we select the best one the fits your operations or life style and assist you in maximizing your savings on that rate.

Who can help you do it?
Customer options are emerging from a number of sources.  First, a new type of company is now available to help you.  A Curtailment Service Provider, such as New Era Energy and ConsumerPowerline, are experts in the various programs that exist in your electricity service area.  We serve as your agent in helping you take advantage of these programs in a comprehensive way.  In some cases, your own electricity utility may begin to deploy new programs, such as Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) rate structures.  We also expect to find increasing numbers of new products showing up in stores that allow you to create your own capability to participate in some of these programs.

Why use New Era Energy/ConsumerPowerline?
CPLN is the most experienced Curtailment Service Provider in the market.  We are leaders in creating these markets in New York, New England and California.  We are members of the PJM Independent System Operating, who manages the wholesale electricity market in the mid-Atlantic.

Who is in control?
You are!  We help you identify the full range of possible actions that you can take and equipment upgrades you can consider.  It is your choice which specific things make sense to you and under what conditions.  That becomes your own Energy Plan.  We then monitor wholesale price levels on an hour-to-hour basis and we advice you on a real-time basis when to take the actions you planned in your Energy Plan.  We also take action to obtain payment for you from the correct source.

What are the risks?
None.  Some of the programs involve making usage curtailment commitments to the wholesale market based upon your Energy Plan.  There are penalties in that market if you fail to make that curtailment when called for.  ConsumerPowerline absorbs those penalties so it eliminates your risk from circumstances they may arise that prevent you from doing what you intended to do.

Who do we serve?
New Era Energy serves Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, District of Columbia, Maryland, western Pennsylvania and Delaware.                       

We support all classes of customer.

What is Demand Side Management?
The term “Demand Side Management” means different things to different people.  We use it to cover the time-of-use programs provided by many utilities that are based on specific time of day for on and off peak times.  The rate structures that are based on this time-of-use approach have different prices for these different times.  Our service provides you with the tools to take advantage of these rate options to reduce your electric bill, sometimes very substantially.

What is Energy Efficiency?
Energy efficiency refers to the actions you can take to reduce your electric bill by using more efficient devices and appliances.   Demand response is mostly about changing when you use electricity without significantly changing the total amount used but energy efficiency is reducing you total consumption without sacrificing comfort or functionality.

How do I make money using demand response?
When you contact us, we will perform a free review of your facility to advise you of the types of programs that would benefit you the most.  If you believe those programs would be attractive to you, you can contract with us for our support, at no out of pocket cost to you.

We will perform a more complete engineering analysis of your facilities and operational practices to propose actions that you can take.  We will estimate the cash revenue you will earn or the electric bill reductions those actions will give you.  When you have approved the actions that you want to take, we install any necessary metering equipment and set up any necessary communications capability.  We will begin monitoring your usage as well as hour-to-hour wholesale electricity market prices. 
We will notify you when actions that you identified in your Energy Plan are needed.  Based upon your actual results, we will apply to the appropriate agency for payment and, upon receipt, will pay to your cash share.

Our support provides you with sophisticate on-line tracking of your energy usage that, when combined with our training, provides you with significant new capabilities to mange your energy use and cost.

On an on-going basis, we continue to work with you to identify further revenue and savings opportunities.

 

Bottom line:  Call us now to identify how much you can earn and save.  It will increase the value of your business, building or home.

 

 

 

 

 

DEMAND RESPONSE - ELECTRICITY USERS EARNING CASH PAYMENTS PLUS BILL REDUCTIONS BY SMART CHOICES IN ENERGY USAGE