The project, which will be led by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), has been approved by the IEA Programme Executive Committee and is expected to involve at least 12 Programme member countries including the U.S., UK, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Australia, Japan and Korea. The objective of the project is to deliver the necessary methodology, business processes, infrastructure, tools and implementation plans for the rapid deployment of demand response into each of the participating country’s electricity markets. It will then be up to each country to determine how best to implement demand response if it so chooses.

“Robust demand response participation is a requirement for efficient competitive electricity markets to assure the reliability of our energy distribution systems”, said Hans Nilsson, Chairman of the IEA DSM Executive Committee. “Under the direction of our Operating Agent, we will combine the most talented and experienced resources on demand response in the world, which include local experts in each participating country to achieve the appropriate level of demand response participation to reach each country’s specific objectives.”

The United States through the U.S. Department of Energy will be the host country for the project, which will be based out of Atlanta, Georgia. “The U.S. DOE, with our sister agency the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), is pleased to take the lead in facilitating this important multinational project”, says Larry Mansueti, U.S. DOE, Director, Electric Markets Technical Assistance. “The U.S. has pioneered the use of demand response in our domestic market to improve system reliability, mitigate wholesale price volatility, and as an effective risk management tool. Demand response is an important part of the DOE’s plans to further improve our energy delivery system and complete the transition to wholesale power markets that generate and deliver reliable, abundant and affordable electricity.”

The project, which is expected to begin in early 2004, will deliver a number of products to the project participants including recommendations of best practices for demand response applications, identifying necessary enabling technologies, methods to estimate demand response market potential, tools to determine the effect of demand response on market prices, capacity margins and reserve markets and a valuation method to determine the private and public value created by establishing demand response into local markets.

“The approval of this project by the IEA DSM Programme is a milestone in the development of the emerging demand response industry”, says Ross Malme, RETX CEO and also Chairman of the Peak Load Management Alliance (PLMA), the trade association for the demand response industry in North America. “As an industry we have a lot of people to thank for their support in initiating this project including the U.S. DOE, FERC, the National Association of Regulatory Commissioners (NARUC), the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), NY Public Service Commission, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), PLMA as well as the IEA itself.”

Malme further says, “Many of the countries participating in this project have an urgent need for the deployment of demand response into their markets as evidenced by recent power outages in several parts of the world. These outages are catastrophic to local economies and a danger to national energy security. In addition, the IEA has documented falling reserve margins in many parts of the world which has dramatically increased international as well as domestic interest in this project.”

The IEA Demand-Side Management Programme started its collaboration in 1993 and since then 17 member countries and the European Commission have been working to promote energy efficiency and demand side management for global sustainable development and for business opportunities (see http://dsm.iea.org). Member countries are:

Australia     Finland     Netherlands
Austria    France      Norway
Belgium      Greece      Spain
Canada    Italy   Sweden
Denmark    Japan    United Kingdom
European Commission   Korea   United States

The U.S. Department of Energy’s overall mission is to advance the national economic and energy interests of the nation; and to support scientific and technological understanding in support of that mission. See http://www.energy.govand http://electricity.doe.gov/.

The Peak Load Management Alliance includes leading companies in electric generation, retail energy services, load aggregation, power exchange, demand response systems, metering equipment, grid operations, market management and information technologies. Further information can be found on the PLMA’s website, http://www.peaklma.com.

RETX works throughout North America with electric utilities, load serving entities, ISOs, and retail energy service providers to provide fully integrated, customized and secure Web-based services to support their business processes and customer needs, including load management and energy use analysis tools, customer enrollment, meter information management, settlements, assisting with audit capability, and more. ...