Related DR Research Publications with Abstracts

California utilities have been exploring the use of critical peak prices (CPP) to help reduce needle peaks in customer end-use loads. CPP is a form of price-responsive demand response (DR). Recent experience has shown that customers have limited knowledge of how to operate their facilities in order to reduce their electricity costs under CPP (Quantum 2004). While the lack of knowledge about how to develop and implement DR control strategies is a barrier to participation in DR programs like CPP, another barrier is the lack of automation of DR systems.

During 2003 and 2004, the PIER Demand Response Research Center (DRRC) conducted a series of tests of fully automated electric demand response (Auto-DR) at 18 facilities. Overall, the average of the site-specific average coincident demand reductions was 8% from a variety of building types and facilities. Many electricity customers have suggested that automation will help them institutionalize their electric demand savings and improve their overall response and DR repeatability. This report focuses on and discusses the specific results of the Automated Critical Peak Pricing (Auto-CPP, a specific type of Auto-DR) tests that took place during 2005, which build on the automated demand response (Auto-DR) research conducted through PIER and the DRRC in 2003 and 2004.

The goal of this investigation was to characterize the manual and automated response of residential customers to high-price "critical" events dispatched under critical peak pricing tariffs tested in the 2003-2004 California Statewide Pricing Pilot. The 15-month experimental tariff gave customers a discounted two-price time-of-use rate on 430 days in exchange for 27 critical days, during which the peak period price (2 p.m. to 7 p.m.) was increased to about three times the normal time-of-use peak price. We calculated response by five-degree temperature bins as the difference between peak usage on normal and critical weekdays. Results indicated that manual response to critical periods reached -0.23 kW per home (-13%) in hot weather (95-104.9°F), -0.03 kW per home (-4%) in mild weather (60-94.9°F), and -0.07 kW per home (-9%) during cold weather (50-59.9°F). Separately, we analyzed response enhanced by programmable communicating thermostats in high-use homes with air-conditioning. Between 90°F and 94.9°F, the response of this group reached -0.56 kW per home (-25%) for five-hour critical periods and -0.89 kW/home (-41%) for two-hour critical periods.