Delivering Demand Response - A Report from the Front Lines

The summer of 2006 is now in the books as not only a hot one, but when it comes to electricity demand, a record breaker.  New system peaks were set at regional system operators and utilities across the country.  One of the resources deployed to meet the high demand on the nation's electricity system was demand response.

This Webinar will feature representatives of two firms that are in the business of enabling customers to participate in demand response programs and aggregating them as a resource to meet system peak needs.  These representatives will discuss the demand response activities that they and their clients were involved in during the summer of 2006 in different states and regions.   They will discuss customer acceptance of demand response, the responsiveness to calls for it from ISOs and load serving entities, and the barriers that may have had to be addressed for demand response to be delivered.

The organization authorized by Congress to oversee mandatory reliability standards issued a major report just last week stating that electric capacity margins continue to decline across the U.S. and that action is needed to avoid shortages. One of the first things listed in the report as an action item for addressing the looming problem is that “Electric utilities, with support from state, federal, and provincial government need to actively pursue effective and efficient demand response programs”.

The report was issued by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), the entity recently chosen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as the nation’s first official “Electric Reliability Organization” (ERO). The establishment of an ERO was mandated by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT), and the organization was authorized to oversee mandatory standards for operating the bulk power system in the U.S.

Joining the other speakers on the Webinar presented by the U.S. Demand Response Coordinating Committee (DRCC) will be Rick Sergel, CEO of NERC, who will talk about the findings in the report and how the organization sees the role of demand response in ensuring adequacy of the nation’s power grid.

 Rick Sergel,  CEO, North American Electricity Reliability Council (NERC)

David Brewster, Co-Founder and President, EnerNOC

Bud Vos, Vice President, Comverge, Inc.