Demand Response Is a Big Deal

It’s been only two years since FERC (The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) announced that it would allow DR (demand response) to be treated the same as any other dispatchable power source.  But in those two years, a great deal of work has gone into implementation, and, according to this article on demand response, the results have been impressive.

At issue at the core is ensuring grid operators’ ability to meet peak power demand in the least cost way—preferably, without building expensive new gas peaker plants.  Of course, energy storage, perhaps in the form of advanced rail (per our April webinar), or low-cost zinc-air batteries (per a webinar in the summer of 2011), represent competitive — or perhaps complementary — ideas.