Topic 6 Flashcards
Energy Efficiency
The intentional process by which to change the performance of devices in ENERGY terms (in contrast to influencing their POWER characteristics, which will be discussed in the Demand Response section)
Rebound Effect
A postulate that people increase their use of products and facilities as a result of this reduction in operating costs, thereby reducing the energy savings
The most extreme situation is that rebound can wipe out all of the energy savings caused by efficiency gains, a phenomenon labeled backfire.
ESCO
Energy Service Company. Typically a commercial or non-profit business providing a broad range of energy solutions including designs and implementation of energy savings projects, retrofitting, energy conservation, energy infrastructure outsourcing, power generation and energy supply, and risk management.
Premium Efficiency Investment
The portion of the cost of any device or solution is necessary just to achieve the energy efficiency improvements, off of some standard or benchmark. These Premium Efficiency Investments should be the amounts used to construct total investment amounts and any calculation of the returns achieved from adopting the energy efficiency measures.
Decoupling
In public utility regulation, decoupling refers to separating the total revenue that can be recovered from the actual kilowatt-hours that customers use. Instead, a rate of return is aligned with meeting revenue targets, and rates are trued up or down to meet the target at the end of the adjustment period. This is primarily intended to incentivize utilities to engage in energy efficiency programs.
In public utility regulation, decoupling refers to the disassociation of a utility’s profits from its sales of the energy commodity. Instead, a rate of return is aligned with meeting revenue targets, and rates are trued up or down to meet the target at the end of the adjustment period. This makes the utility indifferent to selling fewer products and improves the ability of energy efficiency and distributed generation to operate within the utility environment.
Demand Response
Demand response (DR) refers to deliberate load reductions during times of system need, such as periods of peak demand or high market prices. Because reduced consumption and increased generation can both restore a system’s supply and demand to equilibrium, DR can be a resource that offsets or defers the need for new generation, transmission, and/or distribution infrastructure.
Interruptible Tariff
A demand response tool used by utilities as a last-resort resource to be called upon in the case of imminent brownouts or blackouts. The utility offers large industrial customers the option to secure lower energy rates through “interruptible tariffs” in exchange for reducing power consumption during periods of system need.
Economic DR
Price response, or economic DR programs, involve the voluntary response to price signals. In such programs, end-users voluntarily reduce consumption during periods of high wholesale prices and receive the market rate for the avoided energy they provide via their demand reduction.
Direct Load Control (DLC)
DLC is where, based on an agreement between the utility and the customers, the utility remotely controls the operation of certain appliances in a household in response to high demand.
Response Time
Valuation of Storage
How quickly a capacity generation source can be called on to either accept or deliver electricity. Example: Chemistry batteries with modern controls can be very quick to respond to the signal that they need to perform, but some of the physical storage mechanisms can have slower response times.
Ancillary Services (Storage)
Storage
Frequency Regulation (supply side) and Demand Charge Management (demand Side)
Storage is an effective spinning reserve (supply)
Demand charge = cost savings by clipping peak power.
Ancillary services are those functions performed by the equipment and people that generate, control, and transmit electricity in support of the basic services of generating capacity, energy supply, and power delivery.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has defined such services as those “necessary to support the transmission of electric power from seller to purchaser given the obligations of control areas and transmitting utilities within those control areas to maintain reliable operations of the interconnected transmission system.” End-users that can provide near instantaneous response to dispatch signals without a significant impact on business operations are effective ancillary services resources.
Co-Generation & CHP
Cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP) is the use of a heat engine [1] or power station to simultaneously generate electricity and useful heat.
Load leveling
STORAGE (TIME SHIFTING)
Day Night Arbitrage. Buying power from generation sources at their most productive part of the day (often at night) and selling it back at the peak hours of the next day (i.e. in the middle of the day or late afternoon/early evening).
This reduces the top and fills in the bottoms of the load curve.
Load shifting
STORAGE
Load-shifting allows for an energy input from a few hours before the peak to be delivered at the peak, with compensation being provided for the differential value for the electricity. This particular configuration is also very useful when generation may be closely coincident with the peak, but not exactly, such as in the case of solar generation technologies in places where there is a late afternoon or early evening load peak.
Peak shaving
A type of demand response aimed at reducing the peak energy requirements of the grid, particularly at its most constrained times of the day or year. Involving very small amounts of energy shifting, Peak Shaving at these moments can have substantial impact on the system power requirements and overall grid stability. The value for reducing these peak power needs can be significant, since under current Dutch Auction market structures, the reduction in the wholesale power benefits all customers. Also, the grid operator would need to deploy less generation (and potentially transmission and distribution) assets to prepare for these rare but inevitable peaks. For these reasons, there is value to this peak shaving that could be potentially compensated.
