Demand Response

The electricity sector is our most used greenhouse gas emission, and of course people want to help to lower it. Demand Response is something that can now give consumers this opportunity. By reducing their electricity usage, consumers can get financial incentives. Using less energy, of course, saves everyone money if people actually consider how much electricity they are using and try to cut back. Demand Response programs have recently become a very valuable resource.

“Advanced metering infrastructure expands the range of time-based rate programs that can be offered to consumers and smart customer systems such as in-home displays or home-area-networks can make it easier for consumers to change their behavior and reduce peak period consumption from information on their power consumption and costs” (Energy.gov). If the consumers can see and get an idea of how much electricity they are using it will help them to change their behavior and how much they use their electricity.

The chart above explains the system that Mitsubishi Electric had come out with to demonstrate their Demand Response resource. One member of the company states, “The system automatically evaluates fluctuating power-generation costs and electricity-market prices to determine optimized incentives for saving power, thereby helping to stabilize supply and demand management while minimizing costs and benefits for utilities and customers alike” (Mitsubishi).

Demand Response is helping to work toward a new goal, and clearly seems to be helping. New technologies, tools and techniques will eventually be created to continue on helping with this, as well as many further goals in wanting to help the power industry design grow further.

Sources:

http://www.pjm.com/markets-and-operations/demand-response.aspx

http://energy.gov/oe/technology-development/smart-grid/demand-response

http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/news/2013/0214-b.html