'Demand rResponse' is how the smart grid will save us billions

Washington State once again leads the pack into our energy future with the innovative energy efficiency concept called “Demand Response.” Generally, when electricity demand rises in an area, we just fire up some source like a gas plant or a coal plant, or put more water through a hydroelectric dam, to produce more electricity to meet that demand.

But what about going the other way? When demand suddenly rises, we can turn off some of the big users that don’t really need it at that particular time, and move that use to a later time when electricity demand is lower. Sounds simple. But until new technology became available, like a smarter grid and some rapid energy communication and control systems, it wasn’t feasible since the response time has to be in minutes, not hours.

Northern Pacific Paper Corporation (NORPAC) in Longview, Washington is a giant consumer of electricity. NORPAC uses huge thermal mechanical pulping refiners, shown here, that are driven by over three dozen 6,000-horsepower motors that use 150 MW to produce 1,600 tons of paper per day. But some of these refiners don’t have to be running at any particular time, so can be shut down to lower demand in response from a power company request because of a demand spike elsewhere. This is the core of the Demand Response program to increase energy efficiency in the Pacific Northwest and reduce the need to build new energy plants, wind farms or pipelines. Source: Energy Northwest

An energy company in the Pacific Northwest just demonstrated that Demand Response works really really well. Although demand response is being implemented in many places, Energy Northwest in Richland, Washington launched a demand response project last Monday that worked perfectly. Energy Northwest is already a model power company, producing all of its power from non-fossil fuel – wind, solar nuclear and hydroelectric. It is a non-profit public entity that sells its power at cost.

Using something called a Demand Response Aggregated Control System (DRACS), Energy Northwest demonstrated to the regional Bonneville Power Administration that this new DRACS system could be relied upon to handle the changes in electricity demand in this new way.

Using this system, many electricity customers are aggregated into a network of users whose electricity use can be varied to adjust demand as needed, in minutes. One such user is the Northern Pacific Paper Corporation (NORPAC) in Longview, a giant consumer of electricity. NORPAC uses huge thermal mechanical pulping refiners that are driven by over three dozen 6,000-horsepower motors (see figure).

As part of this demand response project, NORPAC agreed to let Energy Northwest shut down eight of these huge motors at a moments notice to reduce electricity demand.

That’s a big chunk of energy.

“Energy Northwest met a significant commitment to the region by successfully launching the demand response pilot project by the target date,” said Jim Gaston, general manager of Energy Services and Development for Energy Northwest. “This was a great team effort involving partners throughout the Northwest.”

Indeed, the response to take 32 MW offline was 4 minutes, well under the 10-minute window dictated by the Bonneville Power Administration. BPA, itself a federal non-profit agency, actually called the event without warning to see if they could catch Energy Northwest off-guard.

“From receipt of the event notification through termination by the DRACS, each of our demand response assets performed beyond all expectations,” said John Steigers, Generation Project Developer.

This kind of broad-geographic project involves a lot of people. The City of Richland and the Cowlitz County Public Utility District signed on to let their power needs be varied as needed, and were part of this demonstration last week. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory also helped out by hosting the DRACS in its Electricity Infrastructure Operations Center, a DOE-funded incubator facility built and operated for just such an opportunity.

If we evolve our energy infrastructure as we should in the years to come, almost everyone would be involved in some way. Not just a smart grid, but a smart total system. Then there’s the batteries. Large battery storage systems are an obvious tool in this demand response toolbox, able to be kept charged until needed, and able to come online immediately to smooth out changes in demand. Energy Northwest has some big ones, 500 kW each, and the efficiency of these batteries are now up to 85% (see figure).

A large mobile lithium-ion battery energy storage system, shown here at Energy Northwest’s Nine Canyon Wind Farm, is a 500 kWh battery storage system that can discharge 120 kW at a time. The plan is for dozens to hundreds of these systems to be spread out across the region, all acting in concert. It is an essential tool for the energy efficiency concept of Demand Response. Source: Energy Northwest

The plan is for dozens to hundreds of these mobile lithium-ion battery energy storage systems to be spread out across the region, all acting in concert, along with the demand response customers.

Matching electricity generation to electricity demand, or load, is a constantly moving target. Organizations that provide that service at regional scales are known as “balancing authorities.” As a balancing authority, the Bonneville Power Administration must dispatch generation (on or off) to meet its changing loads across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and even parts of California, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.

So demand response could be a huge benefit to a lot of America. Variable generation sources such as wind and solar have increased over the past 10 years, creating a greater challenge in balancing generation to load. BPA is also required to reserve generation (sometimes as much as 800 MW – more than the total output of most power plants) to deal with this variability. If instituted at a large scale, demand response could deal with that variability on its own.

In the past, BPA provided balancing services solely with capacity from its system of hydroelectric dams. But growing demands on the hydro system have limited its flexibility to provide capacity, so BPA is in need of something like demand response.

If a number of electricity users are able to respond quickly, then the potential for electricity savings is large, and we won’t have to build as many new power plants, wind farms or solar arrays than we would otherwise have to build. Nor would we need as many new transmission lines or new pipelines. The savings could top $200 billion over the next 20 years if implemented across the country.

And it doesn’t stop with just big users like industry. A large number of residential units (like my house) have energy needs that are not large or time-sensitive (I don’t have a family of seven all using the shower in the morning). We can have automated control units placed on our water heaters and air conditioning units that can shut them down for a short time when needed.

We wouldn’t even notice.

Using 20,000 houses like mine would be the equivalent of bringing up an entire coal-fired power plant to meet a spike in demand. Energy Northwest even compensates these users for their efforts, so it’s a win-win.

I’m ready to sign up.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/02/24/solving-americas-energy-future-requires-a-demand-response/?ss=energy