Monthly Minute with Muirfield April 2018: What is Demand Response?
Demand Response offers eligible, participating companies a financial incentive for the ability to curtail load during times of stress on the electric grid. Click the video above for a brief introduction. Demand response programs are not right for every company. In order to determine if your business may qualify to participate in a demand response program, your curtailable demand (kw), must be a minimum of of 100 kw.
Deadlines to enroll for the next demand response program year are approaching fast. If your business is considering participating in a demand response program, contact our corporate office at 888-370-8898 or your local Muirfield Energy Consultant directly. You may also contact us online to learn more.
Data Drives Decisions
Below are this month’s charts. Click a thumbnail image to view the full-size PDF attachment.
Natural Gas
Power
Video Transcript
Welcome to this month’s Monthly Minute with Muirfield.
We will be discussing demand response. In order for me to discuss demand response, I’d first like to explain to you demand. For example, let’s take a five-gallon bucket of water. You fill up the bucket of water so the bucket now contains five gallons of water. The pace at which the bucket of water was filled is called demand. The larger the demand, the faster the water flowed, and the quicker the bucket filled up with water. The slower the demand, the slower the water flowed, and it took longer for the bucket to get filled. That’s your basic understanding of demand.
Let’s fast forward a few months to the summer. Due to hot temperatures, you turn down your thermostat to make your air conditioner make the temperature more comfortable and cooler. However, there’s only a finite amount of electricity that the power grid is able to distribute. Additional power that not only you, but other people are using, puts stress or strain on the electric grid.
In order for the electric grid to work for everyone, and for you and others to not have any interruptions in your electric service, demand response events are called to help ensure that everyone continues to receive electric.
Let’s start with some basic questions to see if your business can qualify to participate in a demand response program. First, your demand, or kW, must be a minimum of approximately 100 kW. Businesses that demand response programs work best for are industrial or manufacturing companies that have backup generation onsite. School systems with the ability to shut down air conditioning and lighting are also candidates that can benefit from demand response programs. Certain businesses that can shut down their dishwashers, refrigerators, and freezers in their kitchens can also benefit. Large commercial office buildings that can shut down their elevators, make changes to their chillers, HVAC and cooling systems, can also help to lessen the strain on the grid during peak demand times. There are monetary incentives to businesses that participate in demand response programs.
Your business is rewarded based upon its performance during the test, and if you perform, or curtail, or shed some of your electric demand if an event requiring you to curtail is called and you perform.
If you are considering participating in a demand response program, it is essential that you contact your Muirfield Energy consultant, or our corporate office at 888-370-8898 as soon as possible. The reason is that there are only a few weeks left to be enrolled in the 2018-2019 demand response plan year.
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, feel free to contact your local energy consultant, or you can call me at our corporate office at 888-370-8898. Thank you for watching the Monthly Minute With Muirfield, and have a good day, and we’ll see you next month.