Southern California Edison (SCE) integrated an estimated 1,118 MW of demand response resources into California's wholesale energy markets. These programs serve SCE's residential, commercial and industrial customers who, in exchange for bill reductions, have agreed to reduce their energy consumption when called upon to do so.
Alstom recently released its latest demand response management system (DRMS) to NV Energy to provide new, advanced functions for the utility's demand response (DR) programs. The latest version of e-terraDRBizNet provides advanced functions to interface with both proprietary and industry standards-based customer devices; this includes the likes of Cooper Power Systems, Carrier/United Technologies, and Corporate Systems Engineering for existing operational load management systems, and Building
Siemens Government Technologies was awarded an $11 million task order by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to implement energy conservation measures at three of its facilities: National Center (Reston, Virginia); Columbia Environmental Research Center (Columbia, Missouri); and the Western Fisheries Research Center (Seattle, Washington).
Honeywell and CPS Energy (CPS) announced a two-year program where CPS will use automated demand response (ADR) technology and services from Honeywell. The program is expected to be the largest ADR deployment by a municipal utility, and will build on a pilot project that CPS Energy and Honeywell completed last year. The pilot included nine commercial and industrial facilities, and helped trim demand by approximately 1.5 MW. Honeywell and CPS Energy will look to enroll 60 additional sites, bringing the potential reduction to nearly 6 MW.
Eaton was contracted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, to help advance energy conservation and implementation of alternative energy projects at U.S. Army-operated facilities around the world. Eaton is one of 11 companies to receive the $600 million shared capacity multiple award task order contract. Under the contract, Eaton will provide existing condition surveys, system designs, installation and commissioning for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) adopted new performance incentives to promote energy efficiency goals.
NRG Energy acquired Energy Curtailment Specialists (ECS), one of the largest, private demand response providers in North America. ECS offers business customers ways to contribute to energy load reduction during times of peak demand. Energy Curtailment Specialists currently manages more than 2,000 MW of demand response across the country for over 5,000 customers.
Toshiba acquired a 76% interest in cyberGRID GmbH, an Austrian developer and provider of intelligent energy management solutions. The cyberGRID system is a virtual power plant (VPP) / demand response system, developed for specific demands of grid system operators, utilities, retailers, industrial customers and distributed generation. VPP matches electricity consumption and offers a lower cost, environmentally friendly alternative to conventional peaking power plants.
The California Public Utilities Commission has approved a series of revisions to the demand-side management (DSM) programs administered by San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE). The authorized changes are aimed at increasing DSM contributions to help the utilities mitigate the effects of ongoing outages at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).