Utilities have used residential loads for providing grid services to utility customers for decades, particularly for demand response. However, the number of customers participating in such programs remains low. New Flexible Load Management strategies for providing grid services have the potential to accelerate customer participation. Efforts to improve customer participation and experience will result in increased load balancing capacity of demand response, which will benefit both customers and electric utilities.
This white paper was compiled by Portland State University with contributions from the Association for Energy Affordability, A.O Smith, SkyCentrics, New Buildings Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Larson Energy Research and the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance. It intends to investigate whether current smart grid devices (specifically water heaters) can provide needed services while meeting the ANSI CTA 2045 standard requirements. CTA 2045 is a communication interface within a product that enables communications between utilities and residential and commercial end uses. Findings from this research support NEEA’s efforts to better understand barriers to demand response programs and flexible load management strategies.
