Impact of Enabling Technologies on Customer Load Curtailment Performance: Summer 2001 Results from NYSERDA’s PON 585 and 577 Programs and NYISO’s Emergency Demand Response Program

This report describes a market and load research study on a small group of participants in the NYISO Emergency Demand Response Program (EDRP) and the NYSERDA Peak Load Reduction and Enabling Technology Programs. In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 individual customers that participated in the NYISO EDRP program through New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG), AES NewEnergy, and through eBidenergy/ConsumerPowerLine. These contractors used funding from NYSERDA to apply enabling technologies that were hypothesized to improve customers' ability to curtail load. Both NYSEG and eBidenergy/ConsumerPowerLine offered their customers access to their hourly load data on a day-after basis and, during curtailment events, on a near-real-time basis. Phone interviews were conducted with most customers; however 25% of customers provided initial responses to the survey protocol via email. We then combined the market research information with load data during the curtailment events of August 7-10, 2001 to evaluate the impact of technology on curtailment responses.