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Flexibility for Demand Response Programs
The Silver Spring Smart Energy Platform enables utilities to directly connect with their customers and empower them to reduce peak demand while balancing cost, comfort, and convenience.
According to McKinsey Consulting, Princeton University, the California Energy Commission, and others, Americans can save from $10 billion to $19 billion every year by balancing investment in new power plants with demand response programs.
Reducing peak loads and deferring additional generation capacity are key initiatives for most utilities. Demand Response (DR) programs, which encourage and incentivize customers to reduce demand during peak periods, provide the framework for realizing those goals. Leveraging in-home devices in concert with DR programs dramatically improves the success of these programs.
The Silver Spring DR solution consists of back-office software, the robust communications of the Silver Spring smart grid network, third-party in-home devices, and turnkey services that enable utilities to deploy broad-scale load control and pricing-based DR programs.
Silver Spring provides its utility clients with a rich DR software platform in its UtilityIQ Demand Response Manager application. The application enables utilities to define and manage DR programs, manage both customer devices and the network linking to customers’ homes, define device groups at which to target DR activities, and send DR events and messages.
The Communications Modules within Silver Spring-equipped meters deliver connectivity into the home, enabling the two-way communications essential for effective DR. Silver Spring supports the ZigBee Smart Energy Profile specification for Home Area Network (HAN) devices. The company also supports a HAN device qualification program to ensure end-to-end interoperability with in-home devices and the utilities’ Demand Response programs.
For areas that have not yet received smart meters, Silver Spring offers Direct-to-Grid™ communications solutions for DR. Direct-to-Grid communications leverage Silver Spring’s IPv6 Communications Modules integrated into third-party devices such as load-control switches and Electric Vehicle charging stations. In addition to supporting DR ahead of a smart meter deployment, the Direct-to-Grid communications option also delivers robust communications, leveraging the coverage and redundancy inherent in the Silver Spring RF mesh network to provide utilities the assurance they can reach high-value DR assets and shed load.
Utilities initiate pricing events or load control message from within UtilityIQ Demand Response Manager, which manages communications over the smart grid network to both grid- and ZigBee-connected devices.
With this full two-way solution, utilities can view real-time and historical information about the success of various Demand Response programs. The CustomerIQ customer engagement platform offers DR participants advance notice of upcoming DR events and an immediate view into their usage patterns.
With Silver Spring’s end-to-end Demand Response solution, utilities can leverage their investment in the Advanced Metering network and extend it to Demand Response applications to reduce cost and improve the reliability of the smart grid.
