Storage I can see. I'm trying to visualize how great the response will be in the flexibility mode. For example it is a sweltering hot day. You have an air conditioner. You turn it on, presumably because your house is uncomfortably hot even with passive cooling. You are offered two shiny quarters not to turn that air conditioner on. How important is that 50 cents to you? You have just used up your last clean trousers. Are you really willing to wait to wash them?

Similarly you are a business. You make    widgets. Are you really willing to send your workers home for the day and bring them back to catch up and night on production? That had better be some rebate!  

Again storage can take care of  most of these. Compressed air, heat and cold can all be stored fairly cheaply. But the study is listing flexibility in addition to that storage. If you've already used the heat or cold or compressed air that you produced when the wind was strong or when production was off peak, I'm having trouble visualizing just doing without services. Please, tell a story; give an example.

Thanks

Gar

They mention Electric Arc Furnace and Chlorine electrolysis - in both cases delaying batches by up to two hours. Maybe the industries are so constructed they can find other things for their workers to do   during those two hours.

...one really integrates DR with real-time metering, and then designs appliances.  The example most often used is a smart clothes dryer, where the price signal comes through in real-time and is digitally read by your appliance, which then knows to turn on only when the price falls below some threshold (or whatever other control algorithm is built in).  Thus, you don't need to store, you just need accurate price signals.  This goes to the industrial as well who - with real-time price signals - may not send workers home necessarily, but would have an incentive to shift their electrically-intensive activities to lower price hours.  In both cases though, the economics does multiply.  (e.g., the question is not whether you would shut off your dryer for 50 cents, but rather whether you would pay a bit more for a dryer that might save you a couple hundred bucks over it's operating life.)

...and as Patrick points out, the link between DR and the environment is an indirect one, and not necessarily positive.  Hydro is the cheapest source of power, which produces kWh as long as the water is flowing.  Nuke is the next on the dispatch, and basically runs 24/7, but for maintenance.  Then coal.  Then gas-fired power plants.  Then really expensive oil fired peakers.  I'm oversimplifying, but depending on the switch, you may well be substituting gas for coal.  Ultimately, it is rather inefficient to try to fix this through DR though.  Put an appropriate price on the carbon and it will shift power plant dispatch curves, so that you don't have to try and build some economically clumsy patch onto the DR structure.

I prefer the term 'deferred demand' to 'demand reduction', because it better describes what you are doing. The fact that you have to devote a paragraph to excluding 'demand reduction' from energy efficiency illustrates said point.

May I also politely suggest that you drop the acronyms as well?  Defining a new piece of terminology, and then obscuring it with an acronym makes everything a little less clear. You don't need them, they break up the pace of the piece, so why bother?  

-- entropyproduction.blogspot.com

Maybe a misread?  You're right that it's deferred, but the acronym is for demand response, not demand reduction.  As you say though, perhaps clarity demands fewer acronyms.

Responding to Gar, mass energy storage will make big changes on the grid, and could well be part of demand response.  It will give power users more options to offer load reductions when the grid calls for them.  Local energy storage might be the buffer that holds intermittent renewables and feeds them back to the grid.  This is certainly the conception for vehiicle-to-grid systems.  

Sean's response gets to the customer end stuff - In  many cases the response will be barely noticeable, and it will be automated.  So the clothes dryer might keep spinning but the heat will turn off - pilot smart dryers are already doing this,  with web tools that allow overrides.  A commercial HVAC system turns temperatures up or down slightly.  A buiding energy management system dims the lights just a bit.  The key is aggregation of a lot of such responses.  Some demand is inflexible and cannot participate.  

Aah - acronymns - occupational hazard of energy wonks.  

Patrick Mazza

> The example most often used is a smart clothes dryer, where the price signal comes through in real-time and is digitally read by your appliance, which then knows to turn on only when the price falls below some threshold (or whatever other control algorithm is built in).  Thus, you don't need to store, you just need accurate price signals.  This goes to the industrial as well who - with real-time price signals - may not send workers home necessarily, but would have an incentive to shift their electrically-intensive activities to lower price hours.  

Right. I'm trying to view the example from the point of view of someone living with it. Am I paying extra for a dryer that will stop drying my shirt right when I have a meeting to go to? Or lets use a smart dishwasher instead which will stop washing my dishes just before I serve a meal? (Cause dryers cost energy; automatic dishwashers used properly save energy compared to sink washing.)

In terms of the business cases. Yeah I guess we have to assume that batch processes will only be delayed if there is other lower energy work that can be done while waiting the extra time. But in terms of CA and EAF I'd feel better with a few details. What are the other processes these industries can deploy workers to. It is interesting that the manufacturing process is that flexible that you can change the order in which tasks are done.

BTW storage also can be part of demand management. And the study does specifically mention it. Heat, and cold can both be stored less expensively than electricity. Possibly compressed air can too, though I have not seeing figures for it. (Upsizing your compressor motors and storage tanks is not cheap - so Im not sure on that point.) So in terms of cooling and air condition you run chillers at night, storing the the results in ice balls or PCM or whatever. (This by the way is demand reduction as well as shifting in any case where day and night temperatures differ by a large enough factor.) Similarly with heat, there are all sorts of low cost thermal mass you can add. And there is no reason a sophisticated storage system cannot be under the control of the electric company as to when demand happens. That is your smart appliance signals "I'm going to need x kWh within the next 24 hours", and the utility choose when within that 24 hour period it is supplied.

I have been using demand response to control power supply costs since 1977 for many reasons.  Over the that time I have seen many of the frustrations that many of you speak of.  I have become cool to price response.  I have had more success with demand response.  However, I have never met much success in the residential sector with demand response.

Gar is correct, storage is a cool approach.  There are load side storage approach as well.  For example, St. Joesph Medical Center here in Burbank recently built a Cancer center.  In that building they incorporated thermal storage so that the utilty could shift the thermal load off the peak.  The cost to put that storage in during the design stage of the building was only $125,000.  For the 1000 kW of storage that provides no supply side approach can equal such a low cost.

Turning swimming pool motors off during peak load periods is another effective means to reduce peak loads.  We also shift water pumping to off peak periods.

The Smart Grid can help better identify the loads during peak periods so those loads can be better understood and reduced.  I think the time for smart grids has come.  We are begining the development of a Smart Grid system that uses Wi-Fi technology to read the meters and control the devices.

Thanks ffletcher. The specific examples you give are really helpful in visualizing how it can work.

OK - read Patrick's responses more carefully - so the air conditioner would not go off, but turn up a few degrees; the dryer turn the heat off or run at a less demanding cycle. OK so there are ways to implement these things without making people miserable.

I don't think you are going to get a high response with just price signals. I think you will have to require all appliances (at least those with real DR potential) to have ability to implement it, and make DR enabled the default setting for those appliances. People will then be allowed to switch appliances off DR if they want to. In affect - make DR opt out.

Whether this is a good thing to do is another question. But I think if you want large numbers of residences to buy into DR based on usage rather than just that implemented through storage, you will need something on those lines.

Ok, Demand Response and Demand Reduction.  

What was learned in California when it had all those Power supply problems.   What I think I remember happening was after a year into it, they (Cali. citizens) were able to reduce eletricity usage by 10 to 20 percent. Demand Response or Demand Reduction or just Demand Curtailment because they would be down if they didn't turn lots of stuff off anyway?

How much happens when a Public Service Annoucement is made, like scrolling during TV shows or radio annoucements; or does that piss some off so they turn things on?

Demand Response, Demand Reduction, Energy Efficiency.

Is there also Demand Delay?   I have always thought that Refrigerators/Freezers should have cold storage so that they can go, what, 6, 8 or 12 hours without needing power.   They could do it daily from noon to 6pm or 10am to 10pm.    

Has someone done the cost effectiveness of storing cold in Refrig/Freezers and that of air conditioning?   I imagine air conditioners storing cold would make a bigger power savings, but the sheer numbers of Refrig/Freezers would make a contribution.  

Also, has it been studied to do water preheating with the Refrig/Freezer.   Run water to the Refrig/Freezer, have a heat transfer from the condenser, and send that to the water heater in the house.   Not cost effective?  Water going into a Refrig/Freezer at 50 degree better than air at 70 degrees for efficiency?  (some Refrig/Freezers get water for ice cubes anyway)

As I've read, Refrig/Freezers can be made more efficient than even new ones now.   Is it more cost effective to go for extra levels of Energy Efficiency or put in Demand Delay, neither or both in Refrig/Freezers?  Has it been studied?  

I live in an experimental demand reduced all electric home.  Lots of low cost devices.

We have a power sensor that shuts down discretionary loads, like electric hot water and electric heat when a hair dryer or electric stove increase demand.  The house is configured to never draw more than 30 amps.

The cold water coming into the house is preheated in the floor, making cold water warmer, and preheating hot water.  The SunFrost refrigerator is built into the wall and surrounded by thick Styrofoam (expanded polystyrene).  We have an air to air heat exchanger so that the stale warm air vented from the house (and shower) is used to heat the incoming fresh air.  We have shutters on windows to block night heat loss and day heat gain.  We also have thermal mass to level the home temperature by holding the cool from night and the warmth from day.  And we have 20 kW solar passive gain and NO CLOTHES DRYER.    It is just nuts to use coal fired electricity to dry clothes.

All that benefits my power consumption and load requirements.  From a power utility perspective, timers and a smart grid would benefit power supply load requirements.

Pangolin - "We can get better services from our buildings from smaller power inputs."

Better services from our buildings (effectiveness). Not just lower heating/cooling costs per square foot (efficiency). We can indeed live better using less energy, and effectiveness-thinking is the key. This is even more true of our transportation issues - we must start thinking of our degree of access to needed resources rather than miles traveled per unit energy as our measure of transportation value.

Sunflower - "Internal demand reduction... The house is configured to never draw more than 30 amps."

This is really a great concept. With buildings configured to even out their electrical power demand internally, the grid, smart or not, becomes much easier to manage. Material savings too - less copper and aluminum in the supply line. And we can do this incrementally, now, one building at a time, while waiting on large-scale grid improvements.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

All of the above - effectiveness, efficiency and demand response. All are important. (Incidentally effectiveness is efficiency. Efficiency is ratio of output to input. And the real output IS service. )
Cutting demand through increases in efficiency (including large increases in effectiveness) is important. But being able to tweak when that demand occurs (without decreasing effectiveness) helps reduce the capital costs of meeting what demand remains.

Great comments all! Responses:

Ice storage in commercial buildings is actually an option for demand response and peak load shaving.  It lets building owners store cool by making ice on the off-peak and then use it on peak, also allowing further cycling down when a demand response is asked.  I've seen a study done for PacifiCorp that looks at it and finds its still a relatively high cost DR resource.  But ideas like this are definitely part of the picture.  

Price response probably will not be enough - that's right.  A bill working its way through Congress would require appliances to be built with smart chips that can offer demand response.  Costs will be nominal.  More on this legislation in future posts.

During the 2001 West Coast power meltdown significant demand response saved the grid from collapse.  The voluntary response was hugely effective, though this would be classed as non-firm and so is not a substitute for standard utility infrastructure. In the Northwest, Bonneville Power Administration operated a the Demand Exchange system which supplied hundreds of megawatts in demand response.  BPA notified customers a day ahead when grid steess was expected - a hot day.  Customers who optedc to supply reductions gained bill credit.  In some cases here, yes, workers were sent home.  But this was an emergency situation.

Sunflower and Pangolin - hugely great ideas and practices.  These go under the heading of energy efficiency, and demonstrate the immense potentials we have to reduce electricity demand.  To promote more of this we need to re-shape the standard utility model into an energy services business model that gives companies positive incentives to provide customers with efficiency as well as electricity.  The Delta Montrose Coop in Colorado, by  the way, finances geoheat exchange installations for its customers, similar to the model Pangolin suggested.  The old utility model of profit purely or mostly by kilowatt throughput is one of the toughest nuts to crack in bringing on the smart grid and efficiency, and I will post on this in the future

Patrick Mazza

I LOVE WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO HELP CUT COST AND THE TIME SPENT EDUCATING PEOPLE LIKE ME !!!

LOVE MOM AND GRAMMA !!!

In a sense Gar you are right, at least with the qualifier you offer, that the real output is service. But efficiency-thinking seldom allows us that qualifier, so I believe it is important for us to understand and recognize the additional value that effectiveness-thinking brings to the conversation.

Here is the distinction I would offer. Efficiency-thinking looks at the performance of system components. The arrest record of a beat cop. The successful procedures carried out by a hospital surgical team. The number of miles traveled on a gallon of gas. The number of tons of corn produced on an acre of soil. I expect you can see what I am getting at. The efficiency focus in these various areas, as thoughtful as it may be, gives us no measure of the public safety of a community, or its physical health, its or whether its transportation and nutritional needs are being properly met.

Effectiveness-thinking by contrast looks at total system performance. Effectiveness rates freedom from crime, not the percentage of crimes which are punished. The U.S. leads the world in medical intervention efficiencies, yet its total healthcare delivery performance whether measured absolutely or per unit cost is poor and getting worse. And while our transportation and nutritional failures have been much discussed, even here on Grist the focus has been miserably often on the joys of 200 mpg hypercars rather than on  true transportation performance. Looked at from an effectiveness standard, a reasonable transportation effect might be described as ensuring convenient, safe, affordable access for all sectors of the population to the resources they need for such ordinary purposes as employment, education, shopping, recreation, entertainment, and socialization. From that perspective our automobile-based system with its poor safety record, questionable convenience and numerous exclusions from participation looks pretty crude, however efficient the component vehicles might be.

It's worth remembering too that systems which contain only efficient components can nevertheless be ineffective because essential components are missing - the efficient police department with no mandate for community involvement will have no opportunity for early intervention with at-risk kids and thereby fail in its public safety effectiveness. It can also be the case that a system can be extremely effective while containing major inefficiencies - traditional agriculture for example, with its crop rotations, hedgerows and fallowings. I make no apology for mentioning once more the red oak tree in my yard in this connection. Root, stem and branch are a miracle of structural efficiency - the tree "knows" just where to put the right amount of material to achieve with minimal input its tall columns and far-reaching cantilevers. Its photosynthesis operation is efficiently developed fresh every year in the spring and jettisoned in the fall to refertilize the soil. It pumps hundreds of gallons of water a day eighty feet into the air, using little energy and no moving parts except the life-giving fluid itself. And yet its reproductive facility is extravagantly, exuberantly wasteful - a hundred thousand acorns a year, tens of millions in an adult lifespan, rain from its branches so that just a few may germinate into saplings and thus continue the cycle.

If the red oak can afford some inefficiencies and still be effective in continuing its species presence on the earth, so can we (I'd count music, dance, art, sculpture amongst the glorious inefficiencies we can and should permit ourselves). But by nature's iron rule the price of ineffectiveness is, ultimately, death.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Unless you think we can completely or mostly eliminate automobiles quickly, 200 mpg Hypercars are an important part of effectiveness; effectiveness is not just about the end state, but how you get from where you are to that endstate.  Efficient cars have to be part of the transition. And there are things automobiles do very well; so I would not rule out there being part of the end state as well.

Another point is that we (meaning everyone )create the future, but we don't control it.  Especially the narrower "we" of people for environmental concerns are a high priority don't control it - nor should we.

Given comfortable, reliable trains along the line of Cybertran, the larger we may choose a society that is close to automobile free. Or they may choose a slightly less automobile dependent society that still uses cars as the primary means of personal transportation.  It is better to offer multiple dimensions in solutions, so that whatever mix we end up with is sustainable.

I will add that especially in blog format you can't always be putting everything in larger context. I'm trying to get out of the habit of writing 2,000 word posts  - which means not dealing with walkable cities or trains every time I write about cars, not writing about efficient cars every time I write about trains.

I don't disagree with your comments about our needing more efficiency, in vehicles and everything else. I live by design in an energy-efficient small house, drive a fuel-efficient small car and plan my trips in it as efficiently as possible. But it's fairly clear that efficiency may not be enough to stave off massive economic and social dislocation in this country and globally as a result of climate change. If this surmise has a chance of becoming fact I think it's beholden on the environmental community to think ahead and have some sense of where the chips need to fall to do better in the future - and that means systems thinking. An efficient car as a component in a wildly inefficient transportation infrastructure will make no sense in a future where cheap and abundant energy is history.

And if we want to have a chance of averting that extremely dislocated future by stopping the runaway express of human-induced climate change we face a yet greater challenge within a rapidly shrinking timeframe. In that case it's absolutely essential to think of effective solutions, not just efficient ones.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.