Earlier this month, the Arizona Corporation Commission announced the approval by the U.S. Department of Energy of a cooperative agreement in which the ACC will receive technical assistance from Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory on a proposal to allow synchronization of smart devices on Arizona’s grid.
Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory is a multiprogram science lab in the national laboratory system supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and charged with conducting unclassified research across a wide range of scientific disciplines. Among other things, the Laboratory is conducting advanced research into developing solutions to global energy challenges, including energy-efficient technologies. The Laboratory reports that savings as a result of its work in this area—from “cool roofs to window coatings to appliances”–have been in the billions of dollars.
Specifically, the ACC proposal would allow APS and its customers to save money through the synchronization of their smart devices by establishing a new tariff, or special contract rate, to compensate smart devices for the value each device provides to the grid. According to the ACC, this could include, “at-home batteries when they dispatch extra energy to the grid during times when energy supplies are low, or . . . smart appliances and smart thermostats when they draw excess power from the grid during times when energy supplies are high.” The proposal will help to reduce the overall cost of providing power to customers by better balancing supply and demand on the grid as well as reducing the need to build expensive power plants intended to run for just a few hours each year in order to meet peak demand.
The ACC’s proposal for an all-encompassing demand-side resource aggregation tariff is a “first of its kind” in the nation. Coming on the heels of the Commission’s work to update Arizona’s Energy Rules, this proposal is another way in which Arizona is demonstrating leadership when it comes to finding innovative ways to generate the power we need to grow and thrive while reducing costs to ratepayers and the impact of energy generation on the environment.
According to Lisa Schwartz of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the idea behind this type of demand-side aggregation is “solar working in tandem with storage, in tandem with various flavors of demand response, whether it’s the utility controlling the water heater or the customer with an automatic smart setting on the thermostat in response to a price signal. And all these aggregated demand-side resources together, providing more value to the utility and its customers instead of just a single distributed resource.”
Chairwoman Lea Marquez Peterson, along with all four other Commissioners, welcomed the technical assistance by Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, which will come at no cost to the Commission.
APS is required to file a proposed tariff on April 1, and stakeholders have been encouraged to work with APS both prior to and following that deadline to develop an appropriate rate design, including compensation values and eligible technologies; the proposal is expected to be finalized later this year. Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory will be providing technical assistance throughout the process as well as a final report that will include valuable data on how devices will be able to be interconnected and what value this type of system will provide to the grid.