WASHINGTON, DC (April 7, 2014) – In a report to its Board of Directors today, The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) announced that demand response providers performed better than expected—and in excess of their contracted commitments–during a powerful winter storm, known as the Polar Vortex, that caused outages at several power plants on January 6, 2014.
The severity of the January 6th storm put ERCOT’s grid at risk for significant failure. According to ERCOT’s report, hundreds of Texas businesses, schools, local governments and individuals participating in demand response provided 496 megawatts of capacity to the grid within 46 minutes of being called, an amount equal to the output of an average sized coal fired power plant. As the report finds, demand response programs exceeded expectations by delivering 127% of the power contracted for. This demonstrates once again that demand response is a fast-acting, responsive resource that can help independent system operators and electric utilities maintain grid reliability.
“This event shows that demand response is not just a summer resource,” said Rick Counihan, Chairman of AEMA. “As a proven year-round resource, demand response will be available to reduce pressure on the grid today and in the future, while empowering consumers to make choices about their energy consumption.“
Demand response programs enable consumers to reduce their energy usage in return for compensation. In addition to directly saving consumers money, demand response makes the electric grid more efficient, more reliable, more environmentally friendly, and less expensive according to The Advanced Energy Management Alliance (AEMA), a coalition of demand response consumers and providers.
About AEMA:
The Advanced Energy Management Alliance (AEMA) is an association of providers and supporters of demand response united to overcome barriers to nationwide use of demand response for an environmentally preferable and more reliable grid. AEMA advocates policies that empower and compensate customers to manage their energy usage and make the electric grid more efficient, more reliable, more environmentally friendly, and less expensive. Members of the Alliance include Alcoa, Comverge, ELCON, EnerNOC, First Fuel, IPKeys, Johnson Controls, Landis+Gyr, and Walmart.