Demand Response Resources & Tools

Demand Response Resources

In the early days of demand response programs, industrial and large electricity customers provided manual demand response in response to pager or phone communications from their utility company.

With the advent of automated demand response communication protocols, large retail stores joined in to provide the bulk of commercial and industrial sector demand response. Market expansions into hotels, offices and other commercial businesses have followed. Industrial markets, including cold storage warehouses, and processing businesses that can accommodate short time delays in processes, use demand response to reduce their electrical energy costs. Demand response in the agricultural markets has focused largely on pumping applications. The residential market for demand response is now possible with smart meter deployments. With appropriate coordination through aggregation, a collection of relatively smaller responses can be made significant at the grid level.

With improvements in broadband communication, we can now coordinate demand response resources faster so that loads can be dispatched as needed to maintain grid reliability. Previously, demand response across all market sectors was coordinated at the retail level (typically a local utility). However, our research suggests an even greater potential value for demand response at the wholesale level (i.e., independent system operators and regional transmission organizations), where very short reductions in demand can act in the same capacity as ancillary services generation.

Demand Response Quick Assessment Tool (DRQAT)

The opportunities for demand reduction and cost saving with building demand responsive control vary tremendously with building type and location. The DRQAT assessment tool predicts the energy and demand savings, the economic savings, and the thermal comfort impact for various demand responsive strategies.

It is based on the most popular feature and capabilities of EnergyPlus. Users of the tool will be asked to enter the basic building information such as types, square footage, building envelope, orientation, utility schedule, etc.

The assessment tool will then use the prototypical simulation models to calculate the energy and demand reduction potential under certain demand responsive strategies, such as precooling, zonal temperature set up, and chilled water loop and air loop set points adjustment.

NOTE: The latest version of DRQAT is Version 4.0.0.

DRQAT Download Form

Please fill out this form to receive an email with download links for the most recent 3 DRQAT versions.

DRQAT Manuals

DRQAT Data Requirement (PDF)
Engineer's Manual (PDF)
User Manual (PDF)