What is Demand Response (DR)?

They are programs that gives residential, commercial and industrial consumers the ability to voluntarily cut down their electricity usage at different times of day (peak hours) during high electricity prices or during emergencies (preventing blackouts).

Demand Response Research Center (DRRC)

Was established in the spring of 2004 by the California Energy Commission Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program. It was established to conduct research on the near-term adoption of demand response (DR) technologies, policies, programs, strategies, and practices.

To achieve its objectives, they were guided by these 5 tasks:

1. Create a roadmap to guide California DR Research.
2. Establish multi-institutional partnerships.
3. Pursue outreach efforts to foster connections with customer, vendors, utility, and other stakeholders.
4. Sustain long-term attention to DR research.
5. Conduct research, development, demonstrations, and technology transfer.

Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR)

DRRC worked with California and the nation to develop an open communications specification to automate DR. It facilitates reliable and cost-effective automation of electricity price and system grid reliability signals for DR.

Problems

Some researches believe demand response can help with renewables. But there are some issues/problems. There is a major limitation today, including communications, latency, and market design. Some participants does not want to be called on again and again to shed the load over the summer.

Sources:

1. http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/can-autodr-meet-the-needs-of-renewables
2. http://drrc.lbl.gov/openadr
3. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/demand-response.htm