In Ontario, air conditioning combined with dinner preparation drives up electricity demands on sweltering summer afternoons. Based on https://www.ieso.ca/en/Power-Data/Data-Directory, the peak usage in the 1994-2002 period was on August 4/2001. In the last three years, the peak was August 24/2021. Energy efficiency helps drive down overall electricity demand, but the grid operators also need to deal with variability. An imbalance between supply and demand can cause local variations from the 60-cycle frequency used in North America grid which in turn can result in brownouts or blackouts.
Grid operators work with power generator operators to keep the system stable. Nuclear reactors provide base power because it is hard to ramp them up and down. Gas-fired peaker plants are the most responsive, while hydro-electric and large scale thermal generators are in between. The growth of wind and solar generators that are inherently variable has increased the challenge. Grid operators can also buy and sell energy with other grids but are often forced to pay high prices at peaks and only get low prices during troughs. The long-term solution is grid scale electricity storage which is currently expensive, although electric "vehicle-to-grid" systems may reduce the cost.
Demand shifting is one way to flatten the peaks. Many electricity utilities offer Time of Use rates - Hydro One currently charges an off-peak rate between 19:00 and 07:00 that is half the on-peak rate. I run the air conditioner mostly between 22:00 and 07:00, using the furnace fan to keep the house comfortable during day. In effect, I am using my house (especially the basement) as a "cold" battery.
Another option is to dynamically shift electricity usage during peak demand. Hydro One is offering its myEnergyRewards program (https://myenergyrewards.ca/) that for a $75 incentive (cash or towards a smart thermostat), customers with specific smart thermostats agree to allow their thermostat service providers to pre-cool homes before a predicted peak in electricity consumption, then raise the thermostat set point by up to 4 degrees Celsius for one to four hours during the peak period. Customers have override capabilities.
In my case, the boarding process was bumpy. A company called Virtual Peaker manages the initial signup and provides a dashboard, but the confirmation email had a login link that did not work. It took a while to figure out how to gain access to the dashboard.
I had to enable the eco+ feature (just the Community Energy Savings setting) on my Ecobee3 thermostat, but Hydro One did not show up as my electricity provider. CLEAResult provides support for myEnergyRewards - It took several phone calls before Hydro One provided my postal code to Ecobee. Even though I received my $75 incentive, Virtual Peaker was not registering information about my thermostat, requiring more phone calls with CLEAResult. In today's digital world, multiple service providers are the norm but can be confusing when that is obvious to the customer.
The $75 incentive is paid via a virtual MasterCard that can only be used for online or telephone purchases. The cardholder agreement talks about using a "split tender transaction" if the purchase exceeds the remaining value of the card. Unfortunately, it appears splitting a payment across multiple credit cards (a virtual MC is a credit card) is not commonly available in Canada (see https://www.giftcards.com/gcgf/visa-egiftcard-payment for details). The easiest option was to purchase a $75 gift card since many merchants allow purchases to be split between their gift cards and a credit card.
I will post after there has been a demand response event. Depending how aggressively Ecobee adjusts my thermostat setpoint down during pre-cooling, the air conditioning may run unnecessarily at on-peak electricity rates.
Blog comments