Beyond weather: Key drivers that determine load control events
Members who are enrolled in one of Steele-Waseca Cooperative Electric’s load management programs know that when extremely hot or extremely cold temperatures are in the forecast, it’s likely that they will receive a notification of a scheduled control event.
That’s because weather, particularly temperature, is the primary determinant for load control dispatch as extreme weather events will drive energy demand due to heating or cooling needs.
Steele-Waseca and its wholesale energy provider, Great River Energy (GRE), utilize load management as a strategy to reduce demand for electricity during high demand periods. These programs encourage members to voluntarily install equipment that stores less expensive off-peak energy or appliances that can be temporarily controlled to reduce energy consumption during times that electricity is most expensive.
But there are days when factors beyond temperature come into play when determining whether to initiate a load control event, including:
• Market position: Great River Energy forecasts the demand needs of its member-owner cooperatives on a daily basis and makes purchases from the regional energy market to serve them. Similarly, generation is bid into the market daily, including wind energy. In instances where there is high demand, load management programs can reduce the cooperative’s overall market exposure.
• High prices: These can be driven by natural gas prices, which are often price setters in the energy market.
• Localized outages: Either generation or transmission outages can affect pricing.
• Reliability concerns: While not a frequent driver, there are instances where load control is used to help mitigate reliability concerns. During these events, load is reduced so that transmission congestion is brought below a system operating limit.
• Monthly events: Great River Energy will often initiate a load control event one time per month for contractual reasons, ensuring that member-owners receive the value from load management over the billing peak (i.e., the highest demand that is experienced on the system each month).
Using load management as a strategy saves members money by helping GRE mitigate high-cost market purchases that would otherwise need to be paid by its member-owners. Additionally, there are capacity benefits that accrue to members, allowing the cooperative to better position its resources and reduce costs needed to acquire or build more generation.
More than 300,000 devices—from water heaters to air conditioners to irrigation and space heating systems—enrolled across several load management programs, can be dispatched when needed by Great River Energy system operators. Members who participate in these programs receive a reduced electric rate. Contact Steele-Waseca for more information on load management programs and how you can get enrolled.
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