BPA, Energy Northwest demand response project wins national award

Friday, May 20, 2016

On April 19, the Peak Load Management Alliance recognized the Pacific Northwest Aggregated Demand Response Commercial Demonstration Project at its annual awards in San Francisco. John Steigers (left) and John Wellschlager (right) accepted the PLMA’s Program Pacesetter Award on behalf of Energy Northwest and BPA.

A project led by the Bonneville Power Administration and Energy Northwest was recently named one of the nation’s best demand response programs, initiatives and achievements of 2015.

In April, the Peak Load Management Alliance recognized the Pacific Northwest Aggregated Demand Response Commercial Demonstration Project with its Pacesetter Award for the design and delivery of a program that effectively supports peak load management.

Simply put, demand response works by using control and communications technology to shut off, shift the use of or reduce the energy consumption of equipment, typically during high-use times. The coordinated decrease or increase of many electric loads at once can support the overall efficiency of a power system and provide substantial flexibility. As a result, demand response can serve as a cost-effective alternative to building new power generating stations or transmission infrastructure, resulting in cost savings for ratepayers.

“The partners created from scratch a scalable demand response platform,” said Brian Solsbee, awards committee co-chair of the PLMA, a national community of experts and practitioners who advance demand response. “The project offers a model for public power entities to serve as a demand response resource aggregator.”

The pilot, which wrapped up in January, provided up to 35 megawatts of demand response from resources served by the City of Richland, Cowlitz County Public Utility District and Pend Oreille County PUD, all in the state of Washington. Resources included two pulp and paper mills — the NORPAC mill in Longview, Wash., and Ponderay Newsprint in Usk, Wash., demand voltage reduction at the City of Richland’s substations and Powin Energy’s battery energy-storage system.

During the demonstration Project, participants, including the North Pacific Paper Corporation's pulp and paper manufacturing facility in Longview, Wash., reduced their electricity use within 10 minutes.

“It was a tremendously successful project,” said John Wellschlager, the BPA customer account executive who helped coordinate the demonstration project. “Energy Northwest proved its infrastructure can deliver a fast, flexible, reliable product.”

Energy Northwest, based in Richland, is a joint operating agency with 27 public power member utilities from across Washington state. It operates over 1,300 megawatts of power generation, including the Columbia Generating Station, the Northwest’s only commercial nuclear plant.

Over the 12-month project run, BPA called 85 curtailment events, which meant each facility or asset had to reduce its energy consumption within 10 minutes and sustain it for up to 90 minutes. 

“Participants successfully reduced electricity use in 80 of the 85 events and the trial project finished with a 94 percent success rate,” said John Steigers, manager of Energy Northwest’s Applied Technology and Innovation group.

During each test event, BPA sent a signal to Energy Northwest’s Demand Response Aggregated Control System, which forwarded it to the utilities serving the participants. After receiving the signal, each participant reduced its electric power usage. For example, both paper mills backed off their manufacturing processes. To be considered a successful event, the change in electric demand or “load” had to be completed within 10 minutes and sustained for a given period of time.

Energy Northwest’s control system is hosted within Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Electricity Infrastructure Operations Center, a Department of Energy-funded facility.

Energy Northwest and BPA continue to evaluate results and will soon release a final report on the project.