For more than a decade (since soon after the company was founded in 2000) we have been an active supporter of large energy users obtaining significant benefits from Demand Response in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM).
In the NEM we have been doing this for many years through the supply of our deSide product, plus through a range of other products and services (call us if you’d like to learn more of the specifics +61 7 3368 4064).
Our clients have achieved cost savings of seven figures on their average cost of energy. As a general guide, savings of 20% of the average cost of energy in their electricity contracts are possible, as we noted back in 2009.
{Since the competitive electricity market opened in Ontario in 2002, we have also had large energy users use our ez2viewOntario software to facilitate their demand response services in that market}
As already noted, we strive to remain agnostic to the technology used in energy supply – and see demand response as one more “technology” that should be used in efficiently balancing supply and demand on a level playing field.
Paul was one of the founders of Global-Roam in February 2000. He is currently the CEO of the company and the principal author of WattClarity. Writing for WattClarity has become a natural extension of his work in understanding the electricity market, enabling him to lead the team in developing better software for clients.
Before co-founding the company, Paul worked as a Mechanical Engineer for the Queensland Electricity Commission in the early 1990s. He also gained international experience in Japan, the United States, Canada, the UK, and Argentina as part of his ES Cornwall Memorial Scholarship.
A year ago we reviewed the market outcomes of wholesale demand response (WDR) in the NEM. It’s been 2 years now, providing a new milestone from which to review participation and impact. Can we say yet, whether the mechanism is a square peg in a round hole?
One more example of not focusing on the real problems seems to be a tendency for some to obsess about one narrow type of Demand Response (i.e. dispatch of NegaWatts) whilst seeming to lose focus of what the overall objective is (a more active and responsive demand side).
A note of caution, that Demand Response is not a magic wand – it *can* achieve a lot, but if can’t be assumed to automatically appear to bridge any gap between supply and demand in a market model, for instance.
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