National Town Meeting on Demand Response and Smart Grid Recap

The National Town Meeting on Demand Response and Smart Grid was held in Washington DC from July 9th to the 11th.  There was a wide range of presenters at the meeting from a diverse set of organizations.  This is a recap of a few presentations that were of particular interest and/or could bear on demand response in the Northwest.

Ron Kurtz from Dimplex gave a presentation on using storage heaters on an islanded system to integrate wind power and rely on a smaller diesel generator.  The project is being implememted on the Shetland islands in a small system that will include a significant wind penetration.  The technology for heat storage and the ability to shift heating load into off-peak hours.

Time of Use (TOU) rates and Critical Peak Pricing were discussed by multiple presenters as a form of DR.  The programs covered included the Smart Pricing Options pilot at SMUD, the SmartRate at Pacific Gas & Electric, and the Ontario Energy Board's mandate for TOU pricing.

In a panel session on integrating renewables with demand response, Ron Dizy from enbala talked about bidding into the ancillary services market in PJM with aggregated demand response resources and Stuart Schare from Navigant talked about a study in the CAISO on the potential for existing DR programs to be used for renewable integration.