ATLANTA, Aug. 9, 2001 – A new report takes a critical look at what role utility-enabled load management programs and systems have in a deregulating energy market.
The report, entitled “Load Management 2001 – Balancing Customers, Regulators and Energy Demand©2001” is the next report to be published by The C Three Groupà¢â€ž-.
Given that deregulation is rolling out in the US in a state controlled, multi-time lined manner, vendor frustration is growing from having to sell into a highly fragmented, ambiguous market. A major issue examined in this report is whether this fragmentation will continue to discourage innovation and the development of new products and technologies.
The report provides utility case studies of existing and developing programs including investor owned, municipal, rural electric and government owned utilities. Program types covered include:
* Direct Load Control
* Voluntary Customer Curtailment
* Real-time Energy Information and Pricing
* Rate and Price Incentives
* Distributed/Standby Generation Monitoring and Control
* Load Management
The report also explores emerging programs and technologies, and projects how they are likely to evolve, and older Demand Side Management (DSM) type programs and technologies that have years of field experience to reveal the “lessons learned” and determine their future value.
“Recent market conditions in some areas of the country indicate that voluntary conservation can be more powerful than predicted for lowering the overall demand curve. However, weather and system related spikes will continue to occur and ways to mitigate these for all classes of customers is still an outstanding issue for distribution and supply companies as well as from the customer perspective,” observes Jean Reaves Rollins, The C Three Group’sà¢â€ž- founder. “Unfortunately ambiguity continues to hamper longer term planning for all players in the industry.”
The report profiles existing and emerging vendors, with a critical assessment of their product offerings and approaches to the market. Vendors profiled include: Schlumberger, ABB Energy Interactive, Apogee Interactive, Cannon Technologies, Comverge Technologies, Johnson Controls, Sixth Dimension, and Silicon Energy among others.
Jean Reaves Rollins, Ed Thomas and Steven Meissel are the report’s co- authors.
The C Three Groupà¢â€ž- is a management consultancy specializing in corporate, market, and organizational strategy.
More information may be found at www.cthree.net.
