Ways to help during a Flex Alert - a photo of an OhmPlug smart plug on top of money
Photo Credit:
OhmConnect
Just the beginning

How to Engage CA’s Biggest Savers in Flex Alerts

Matt Duesterberg
/
August 23, 2022

On August 17th, a modestly hot day in California, with temperatures reaching 105 degrees in the Central Valley, the California energy market operator (CAISO) issued the summer’s first Flex Alert to encourage electricity consumers to reduce their energy use from 4:00-9:00 pm.

The good news: the lights stayed on. The bad news: some of the state’s best energy savers were left on the sidelines.

How OhmConnect Helped California Residents

Under the state’s new Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP), millions of electricity customers throughout the state were paid to save energy during the Flex Alert. One ELRP player that has gotten a lot of media attention is the Tesla-PG&E virtual power plant program, which reportedly reduced grid strain by sending ~20 MWs of instantaneous battery power back to the grid.

So far so good – so who was left on the sidelines?

OhmConnect has 200,000 members in California that save energy day in and day out in response to grid signals. You could even say that our purpose in life is to save energy when the grid is stressed in order to prevent Flex Alerts. Since July, our members have saved more than 400 MWhs across dozens of events. They’re consistent and reliable.

But we weren’t allowed to join the ELRP, which is managed by the investor owned utilities and paid for by ratepayers. Because we are not in the ELRP, we can only receive in-market payments which paid $219/MWh on August 17th – instead of the $2000/MWh paid out to ELRP. In spite of that fact, we dispatched 25% of our users that day to help mitigate strain on the grid. During the Flex Alert, a quarter of OhmConnect users reduced over 30 MWhs of energy.

How to engage California's biggest savers during Flex Alerts.

But 75% of our users stayed on the sidelines because we weren’t dispatched into the market. These are people who are used to saving energy regularly – and had achieved similar savings 8 times in the 15 days leading up to August 17th. Many are low to moderate income consumers, who have learned how to dial their thermostat up during a heat wave, and have connected their fridge to a smart plug to power down when called upon.

Our potential is even bigger. Across our hundreds of thousands of members, we have nearly ~700MWs of baseline, of which ~550MWs are “market enrolled”. On a major event day, like we have had in August 2020, our members could reduce up to 224 MWs, but on a day to day basis, the average reduction is closer to 96 MWs.

As a market integrated program, the energy operator (i.e. the California ISO) dispatches us and knows how many MWs of savings we and our members will deliver. By dispatching day in and day out, OhmConnect members have demonstrated reductions that dwarf the Flex Alert events (>400 MWhs in just the past 50 days) and demonstrating those reductions reliably (99% deliverability against our dispatched MWh).

Table showing energy reductions during Flex Alerts in California.

It’s August, and we’re sure to have another heat wave – and additional Flex Alerts – in the coming weeks. It’s about time we expanded the ELRP to make sure that we can put our best players on the field.

1 Using the best 2 hour performance from each of our individual members in the month of August 2022

2 Using the average of 20 hours of each of our individual members from June 1, 2022 to August 17, 2022

Most recent posts
Save money. save energy.

Related Articles

See all >
Smart Energy covering the history of the energy grid
New Year, New Grid

Smart Energy Podcast Episode 14

On this episode of Smart Energy, we're chatting about making small habit changes in the New Year, the energy grid with Elysia Vannoy, and answering a listener's question about what to do with old holiday lights.

Multi-family electric bills are calculated in NYC
Navigating the billing maze

Understanding Your Multi-Family Electric Bill in New York: A Tenant's Guide

Gain insights into the workings of electric bills in New York's multi-family buildings, including direct metering, master metering, and the implications for tenants.

An energy audit professional writes notes.
Audit today, save tomorrow

Understanding Home Energy Audits: What You Need to Know

Find out what a home energy audit entails and how it could be the key to unlocking significant energy and cost savings for you.