Once again, load control efforts have saved our members hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What is Load Control?
Any time that we expect extremely cold winter mornings or hot summer afternoons, we will activate load control protocol. These efforts combine several things, including voltage reduction, asking large accounts to run their generators and asking members to voluntarily reduce high usage activities, such as running hot water or using large appliances.
Why is Load Control important?
At CHELCO, we are required to have a greater energy capacity than our expected “peak” for the year. Trimming peak demand saves all members money, because greater system peaks require more capacity, which leads to extensive upgrades and increased rates paid to our wholesale power provider, PowerSouth Energy Cooperative. If we can work together to reduce peak demand, we can avoid these expensive upgrades and increased wholesale rates.
How did Load Control efforts go in January?
During the 7 a.m. hour of Jan. 17, CHELCO’s coincident usage peak with PowerSouth, our wholesale power provider, occurred with a demand of 313 megawatts (MW), a new all-time high, surpassing our previous all-time peak of 296 MW.
Thanks to our demand response efforts, including voltage reduction, key accounts running generators, load control switches being activated and members voluntarily reducing high-energy activities, we managed to avoid just over $260,000 in wholesale power costs for January, due to a total demand reduction of nearly 26 MW.
