This report summarizes several historical and ongoing efforts to make small electrical demand-side devices like home appliances more responsive to the dynamic needs of electric power grids. Whereas the utility community often reserves the word demand response for infrequent 2 to 6 hour curtailments that reduce total electrical system peak load, other beneficial responses and ancillary services that may be provided by responsive electrical demand are of interest. Historically, demand responses from the demand side have been obtained by applying external, retrofitted, controlled switches to existing electrical demand. This report is directed instead toward those manufactured products, including appliances, that are able to provide demand responses as soon as they are purchased and that require few, or no, after-market modifications to make them responsive to needs of power grids. Efforts to be summarized include Open Automated Demand Response, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturer standard CHA 1, a simple interface being developed by the U-SNAP Alliance, various emerging autonomous responses, and the recent PinBus interface that was developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Revised: March 11, 2014 |
Published: December 1, 2009