Demand Response - Electricity Grids and Peak Demand Response

Electricity Grids and Peak Demand Response

In an electricity grid, electricity consumption and production must balance at all times; any significant imbalance could cause grid instability or severe voltage fluctuations, and cause failures within the grid. Total generation capacity is therefore sized to correspond to total peak demand with some margin of error and allowance for contingencies (such as plants being off-line during peak demand periods). Operators will generally plan to use the least expensive generating capacity (in terms of marginal cost) at any given period, and use additional capacity from more expensive plants as demand increases. Demand response in most cases is targeted at reducing peak demand to reduce the risk of potential disturbances, avoid additional capital cost requirements for additional plant, and avoid use of more expensive and/or less efficient operating plant. Consumers of electricity will also pay lower prices if generation capacity that would have been used is from a higher-cost source of power generation.

Demand response may also be used to increase demand during periods of high supply and/or low demand. Some types of generating plant must be run at close to full capacity (such as nuclear), while other types may produce at negligible marginal cost (such as wind and solar). Since there is usually limited capacity to store energy, demand response may attempt to increase load during these periods to maintain grid stability. For example, in the province of Ontario in September 2006, there was a short period of time when electricity prices were negative for certain users. Energy storage such as Pumped-storage hydroelectricity is a way to increase load during periods of low demand for use during later periods. Use of demand response to increase load is less common, but may be necessary or efficient in systems where there are large amounts of generating capacity that cannot be easily cycled down.

Some grids may use pricing mechanisms that are not real-time, but easier to implement (users pay higher prices during the day and lower prices at night, for example) to provide some of the benefits of the demand response mechanism with less demanding technological requirements. For example, in 2006 Ontario began implementing a "Smart Meter" program that implements "Time-of-Use" (TOU) pricing, which tiers pricing according to on-peak, mid-peak and off-peak schedules. During the winter, on-peak is defined as morning and early evening, mid-peak as mid-day to late afternoon, and off-peak as night-time; during the summer, the on-peak and mid-peak periods are reversed, reflecting air conditioning as the driver of summer demand. In 2007, prices during the off-peak were C$0.034 per KWh and C$0.097 during the on-peak demand period, or just less than three times as expensive. As of 2007, few utilities had the meters and systems capability to implement TOU pricing, however, and most customers are not expected to get smart meters until 2008-2010. Eventually, the TOU pricing (or real-time pricing) is expected to be mandatory for most customers in the province.