Public Service Company of New Mexico Selects Enbala Power Networks to Manage Peak Saver Program
(PRWEB) May 10, 2017 -- Enbala Power Networks has been selected by Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) to administer the utility’s Peak Saver demand response program beginning in 2018, pending New Mexico Public Regulatory Commission approval.
As the state’s largest electricity provider, PNM services more than 500,000 residential and business customers. It has a well-established base of demand response (DR) resources that the company has used since 2008, and its Peak Saver load management program is one of the two key components. Designed to help large commercial and industrial (C&I) customers reduce the amount of energy they require during peak demand periods, the Peak Saver program is dispatched during the hottest days of the year, and participants are paid an annual incentive based on the amount of peak demand managed by the program.
Beginning in 2018, Enbala has been selected to manage the existing 15 MWs currently under control and to market the Peak Saver DR program to add additional capacity. Enbala will be responsible for building and operating a direct load control system that provides PNM with the ability to achieve contracted load reductions through control of end-use equipment at participating businesses. Enbala responsibilities include marketing, installing load control equipment, data collection and analyses required for validating the contract capacity.
According to the PNM Application for Approval of 2018 Electric Energy Efficiency and Load Management Program Plan, one of the objectives of the contract with Enbala is to, “Update the existing programs to realize benefits of advances in technology. Since the introduction of PNM’s current programs over nine years ago, communications, load control technology and program experience have advanced, and more devices can be controlled, load response is faster and more flexible, and system operations can monitor curtailments in near real time.”
PNM’s filing further states, “Enbala has a strong technology offering that could be used in the future to help integrate distributed energy resources including controllable load, batteries, distributed generation, smart inverters and electric vehicles.
“DR programs are often a struggle for utilities wanting to meet their energy balancing goals in a way that doesn’t disrupt customer operations or negatively impact customer satisfaction,” commented Enbala President and CEO Arthur “Bud” Vos. “The advanced, real-time information and communication infrastructure of the Symphony by Enbala VPP platform can be used to aggregate, control, optimize and manage distributed energy resources (DERs) as on-demand dispatchable resources, and allows more DERs to be considered by utilities for their energy portfolio mix, including behind-the-meter storage, solar and EV charging.”
About Enbala Power Networks®
Enbala Power Networks is focused on making the world’s power grids greener and more reliable, efficient and predictable by harnessing the power of distributed energy. Enbala’s real-time energy-balancing platform - Symphony by Enbala(TM) - is transforming energy system operations through its revolutionary, highly flexible approach for creating controllable and dispatchable energy resources. It unobtrusively captures and aggregates available customer loads, energy storage and renewable energy sources to form a network of continuously controlled energy resources. The platform dynamically optimizes and dispatches these resources to respond to the real-time needs of the power system – all without impacting customer operations. For more information, visit http://www.enbala.com or follow @enbala on Twitter.
Ginger Juhl, JUHL COMMUNICATIONS, +1 720-323-6560, [email protected]
Share this article