FERC Staff Report on Assessment of Demand Response and Advanced Metering

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

This report is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff’s (Commission staff’s) eighth annual report on demand response and advanced metering. It fulfills a requirement of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005) section 1252(e)(3)1 that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or Commission) prepare and publish an annual report, by appropriate region, that assesses electricity demand response resources, including those available from all consumer classes.

Since 2006, Commission staff has published a series of annual reports assessing demand response and advanced metering in the U.S. In support of these reports, the FERC staff has conducted comprehensive nationwide surveys every other year. For reports in intervening years, including this report, the information is based on publicly-available information and discussions with market participants and industry experts.

Based on the information reviewed, it appears that:

• Data from several sources show that the penetration of advanced meters is up, from approximately nine percent in 2009 to nearly 25 percent in late 2011/early 2012;3
• Since 2009, demand response potential in organized markets operated by the Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs), Independent System Operators (ISOs), and Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) increased by more than 4.1 percent; and,
• Demand response resources made significant contributions to balancing supply and demand during system emergencies for several RTOs and ISOs in the summer of 2013