Direct Load Control Gaining Renewed Interest

With the price of natural gas and coal rail costs on the rise, electric cooperatives are looking at options to better control energy costs.  A recent cover story in RE Magazine highlighted some of the challenges electric utilities are facing as well as how they are responding to better control power costs.  Also, politicians in Washington are feeling the heat from constituents as gasoline prices have soared to over $3.00 per gallon in many parts of the country.  As a result, there has been a renewed interest in energy conservation and demand side management programs by many utilities.  In particular, residential direct load control programs that were very popular over ten years ago are now being re-evaluated by electric cooperatives.  New residential load management technologies that now provide greater flexibility and more control options for customers are being developed and deployed.

The traditional residential direct load management switches that were installed on many air conditioners and water heaters in the 1980’s have become more intelligent through recently developed technologies.  Virtually all of the new switches are individually addressable, meaning that individual switches can be controlled independently and customers now have the option to have their switches electronically disabled in the event they become uncomfortable or want to be temporarily removed from the program.  Software upgrades can now be done “over the air” and cooperatives can communicate with switches using public paging networks instead of building out and maintaining expensive communications networks.  Most switches also contain multiple relays so air conditioners and water heaters can be controlled with the same switch and have independent control strategies for each relay.

Direct load control switches are also being incorporated into thermostats.  These thermostats are designed to replace the customer’s existing thermostat and include a built-in receiver that allows the cooperative to control the customer’s air conditioning unit.  Some of the more sophisticated units allow for 2-way communications and provide feedback on control strategies, even notifying the cooperative when customers override the unit.  Other units provide a web interface for programming the thermostat remotely which can be useful for customers looking for more control options or those with vacation homes.  While two-way thermostats are considerably more expensive than conventional load control switches, they provide greater flexibility and may be offered as an option to existing programs.

Most cooperatives offer incentives for customers who participate in load management programs.  Those incentives are typically in the form of a bill credit or cash incentive, and are probably not directly tied to the actual value of the program.  In fact, many of these incentives may have been in place since the beginning of the program and may no longer be cost-effective.  Newer programs are moving to a pay-for-performance basis where the customers are only paid when the switches are actually being controlled.  This type of incentive structure will become more common in the future, provide customers with more choices and improve program economics.

Flint Energies, a 60,000 member (76,000 services) electric distribution cooperative located in central Georgia, is in the process of installing a new direct load control system using a 2-way powerline carrier based system from TWACS.  According to Jimmy Autry, Senior VP of Member and Community Relations at Flint Energies, “To help us control our wholesale power costs, we are aggressively installing a direct load control system to help reduce our summer demand thereby reducing costs for all of our members.  We signed up and installed over 10,000 direct load control switches in the first six months of our renewed program and continue to promote the program with our members through newsletters, email campaigns, and local partnerships with our school systems.”  By investing in this program, Flint’s goal is to reduce its summer demand by 60 MWs and defer its need to purchase additional capacity to serve its members. Flint would like to control 60,000 of its 103,000 potentially controllable residential appliances on their system.

Are you thinking about a new load management program or do you need to evaluate your existing program? EnerVision has extensive experience in helping cooperatives with the analysis, design and implementation of load management programs.  These services include program design, cost benefit analysis, technology evaluation, and market analysis.  For more information on EnerVision’s load management services, please contact Robert Duval at 1-888-999-8840 or e-mail him at Robert.Duval@enervision-inc.com.