Zero to 60 Megawatts in 8.4 Seconds: How to Rapidly Deploy a Peak Load Reduction Program

Bruce Ceniceros, John Sugar, and Michelle Tessier, California Energy Commission

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Abstract

Urgency legislation during the California electricity emergency called the California Energy Commission (Energy Commission) to the task of rapidly launching a variety of peak load reduction programs in September of 2000. Significant demand savings were needed within months in order to reduce the risk of rolling blackouts and sky-rocketing peak power costs. This paper illustrates some of the strategies pursued to meet this challenge through one example program: the Innovative Peak Load Reduction Program (Innovative Program).

The Innovative Program, the broadest program in the Energy Commission's portfolio of peak load reduction programs, was designed to tap the creative forces in the marketplace. Two rounds of the program were launched between November 2000 and May 2001. The first round was expected to secure 32 megawatts (MW) of electric demand savings by the summer of 2001—within nine months of authorization. In April 2001, as the peak demand outlook for the summer worsened, more funding was authorized to secure an additional 120 MW of peak savings, but only a few months remained to achieve significant peak savings in time to help us through the summer of 2001.

Since only preliminary program evaluation results (Nexant, 2001) were available as of May 2002, this paper focuses on the administrative and procedural aspects of the Innovative Program. The paper describes how the program was designed and launched in five weeks and how the program targeted a diverse set of markets and delivery agents to achieve maximum demand reduction in a short period of time. Since this program utilized three diverse administrative and program design approaches, we compare the relative success of these approaches. The paper also presents the lessons learned that may be transferable to future programs when there is a need to rapidly secure load reduction during times of urgent electricity shortfalls.