IEEE Electrification - September 2021 - 88

new plant construction. The initial
project was supported by the U.S.
Trade and Development Agency, the
China Electric Power Research Institute,
and the Tianjin Econ. Technological
Development Area. Other partners
included AECOM, an electrical engineering
firm and the OpenADR Alliance
in an advisory capacity.
According to the Paulson Institute
Cloud-based
solutions might be
the way to go in
the future as more
resources come
online.
(2014), the outcome of the pilot project
has exceeded expectations
(Samad et al., 2016). Industrial load reduction was 7.7%
during full production periods; DR shed capacity
increased more than 30% in other periods. The commercial
buildings were able to consistently shed 15%-20% of
load (see " Automated Demand Response and OpenADR
Across Consumer Sectors " ).
A Shift to Distributed Energy Resources
Globally, the rising penetration of DERs (including EVs and
storage applications) is contributing significantly to the
carbon reduction goals and decreased reliance on fossil
fuels. These DERs, however, also create control and
integration issues for the utilities, which
are traditionally used to having full control
over the generation aspects of the
grid. Some operational experts would
like to assert a high level of control over
all DERs, in particular, generation assets
that feed into the grid via smart inverters.
This seems prudent on the surface
but may create issues with both the control
and communications aspects and
the customer's willingness to being
" controlled. " It is our opinion that we
will eventually see a split in the control approach based on
the size of the resource. Imagine a solar farm on one end of
the scale. In that case it makes sense to establish agreements
between the utility and the owner of the farm to
allow a certain level of control by the grid operators. A
small solar system in a residential setting would be on the
other end of said scale. This small resource can be one of
many thousands of systems and logistically it would make
more sense to assert less direct control and rather provide
motivational messages (price and energy requests as well
as parameter setting suggestions) to the customers that
own the equipment.
Automated DR and OpenADR Across Consumer Sectors
utomated DR is being used across all
categories of electricity consumption
A
facilities. Increasingly, control of generation
and storage assets are also being integrated.
OpenADR is prominent across the space.
However, there are significant differences among
categories in their interest and availability to
participate in active DSM (Samad and Bienert,
2020; Samad et al., 2016).
Residential
It has been common in many cities
in the United States to have central airconditioning
units under direct
load
control. When required for grid stability or
when wholesale electricity prices are high,
utilities can " cycle " air-conditioning units
in homes, effectively raising set points by
a small amount. Homeowners are given a
financial incentive to participate in these
DR programs, and the interventions are
usually limited contractually to a few days
per summer. Similar programs are also used
for electric hot water heating (utilities may
88
install large storage tanks for domestic hot
water and heat the water overnight when
electricity is cheaper). EV charging and
charging of stationary batteries are also
good candidates for automated DR programs
using both price and capacity messages.
Commercial
Commercial buildings have been the primary
market for automated DR, and the majority
of OpenADR implementations are in this
sector. A number of electrical assets are being
managed, including nonemergency lighting
(which can be dimmed or turned off), cooling
systems (the temperature set-point can be
raised a degree or two), and elevator banks
(the number of elevators in use can be
reduced when needed). The building energy
management system communicates with the
DR server at the utility; many actions are taken
automatically, without operator intervention.
In some cases, campuses and multibuilding
complexes can be treated as an integrated
unit for DR. This includes microgrids, where,
IEEE Electrification Magazine / SEPTEMBER 2021
through OpenADR, generation and storage are
also managed and emergency actions such
as islanding can be taken.
Industrial
Compared to the commercial and residential
sectors, applications of automated DR
and OpenADR in industrial facilities are
far fewer. Reasons include the integrated
nature of many manufacturing operations,
where interrupting one process or machine
will have upstream or downstream
repercussions; the safety and mission
criticality of manufacturing operations;
electricity cost not being a large contributor
to operational expenses; and the fact that
each manufacturing operation is a one-ofa-kind
enterprise, requiring the specifics
of each to be carefully considered before
a DR program can be initiated. OpenADR
has been used in some manufacturing
applications where these considerations can
be addressed, such as the Amy's Kitchen
example noted in the text.
IEEE Electrification - September 2021

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