
Snohomish County PUD (SnoPUD) said today that it is partnering with Virtual Peaker Inc., a cloud-based energy management platform, to deploy a variety of pilot programs that will incentivize customers to change their behavior or employ home technology in an effort to shift energy usage.
SnoPUD’s FlexEnergy pilots will be open to nearly all residential customers and will employ different methods to allow customers to save money and energy. The pilots are scheduled to launch in spring 2021 and run for two consecutive winter periods, concluding in spring 2023.
The PUD will use Virtual Peaker’s Distributed Energy Resources Management System (DERMS), which will be used to enable customer and communicating device enrollment, event scheduling and management, and pilot analytics.
“As we look to manage the grid and our resources in the future, we know we’ll have to partner with our customers to leverage smart technologies and influence customer behaviors to meet energy demand at certain times of the day and year,” said Kelly Strand, Customer and Energy Services Program Manager. “These pilots will help the PUD learn about customer flexibility and adoption of new pilot designs as well as technology integration.”
The FlexEnergy program pilots will focus on three approaches to shifting energy:
- New fixed rate design providing customers a chance for costs savings through behavioral change and technology adoption.
- Demand response allowing customers to earn incentive payments by leveraging customer-owned smart technologies to lower energy use at certain times.
- Fixed peak pricing giving customers the opportunity to reduce energy usage at variable days and times the PUD designates.
“The energy operating system leverages connections, being able to harness Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) to build the grid of the future,” said William J. Burke, Founder and CEO of Virtual Peaker. “We are thrilled to partner with SnoPUD to develop programs that will make that vision a reality.”