Demand Response: An analysis of potential and opportunities in Energy Pool’s targeted markets

Abstract

Demand Response is an electric load management strategy which has been applied under different forms by utilities and adopted by some end-user customers for several years now. The objective is to reduce electric load in response to changes in the price of electricity over time, or to incentive payments designed to induce lower electricity use at times of high wholesale market prices or when system reliability is jeopardized. Currently, it meets up to 10% of electric peak demand in some markets. The goal of the research project is to assess the potential and opportunities of a Demand Response solution in Ontario. The results presented suggest that there will be a need for advanced Demand Response in Ontario in the mid-term, i.e. by 2020, that the curtailable load in industry and large commercial buildings amounts for over 1 GW and that the market size will be as large as 111 M$ in 2016.