Tendril Partners with UISOL for a Residential Price Responsive Demand Project

Tendril and UISOL to demonstrate the project at DistribuTECH 2011, February 1-3 in San Diego

BOULDER, Colo. & SAN DIEGO--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Tendril, an Energy Platform company, is partnering with Utility Integration Solutions, Inc. (UISOL), the leading provider of demand response management and automation systems, on a Price Response Demand demonstration project for PJM Interconnection, operator of the largest power grid in North America. The project shows how Locational Marginal Price paired with distributed intelligence can drive automated residential Demand Response in the home.

“It will also enable utilities to aggregate Demand Response in consumers’ homes for better load control, increased efficiency and additional savings. “”

“This real-world demonstration will show the feasibility and ease with which residential customers can reduce their energy consumption in response to wholesale price signals that reflect grid conditions,” says Tendril CEO Adrian Tuck. “It will also enable utilities to aggregate Demand Response in consumers’ homes for better load control, increased efficiency and additional savings. “

Using Tendril Connect™, the platform of the Energy Internet, and UISOL’s Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) price server, the project allows PJM to test the end-to-end integration of a near real-time Price Response Demand program and better manage electricity demand—making real-time pricing available to consumers at five-minute intervals at the nodal level.

“The ability to manage electricity usage using demand management tools with distributed intelligence could revolutionize the relationship between utilities and their customers,” said Dr. Scott Coe, UISOL VP of Wholesale Markets. “If the assumptions we are making in this pilot around pricing models and communication protocols are right, utilities and consumers will no longer need to surrender to the high energy cost and reliability impacts of uninformed residential consumption.”

The benefits to utilities and other Demand Response providers are two-fold. First, they can aggregate load from residential customers in smaller increments and in more sophisticated ways that do not inconvenience the customer. For example, by adjusting temperatures on thermostats by one or two degrees during various points in the day, utilities can lower overall demand in their service area, thereby avoiding an emergency event or paying a short-term increase in the wholesale market rate for electricity – resulting in cost savings for consumers.

Second, transparency into residential consumption at the nodal level with near-real-time pricing will mitigate the utilities’ need to purchase high-priced energy on the wholesale markets. It could also lead to better integration of renewable energy into the grid, as regional transmission organizations and utilities gain insight into the consumption patterns of end users and match it with the availability of renewable energy resources throughout the day.

In addition to the potential economic benefits to utilities and consumers, a price-responsive demand program can provide significant environmental benefits by reducing reliance on peaking combustion turbines and diesel energy generators.

Tendril and UISOL will offer a demonstration of this concept at DistribuTECH, Feb. 1-3 in San Diego at booth # 1329.

About Tendril

Tendril is the Energy Platform company, delivering end-to-end consumer engagement products, applications and services powered by Tendril Connect™—an open, secure and scalable platform that takes the complexity out of the Energy Internet and creates a dialogue between energy service providers and their customers. Delivering consumer engagement software, in-home products and applications as well as easy to integrate utility solutions such as Demand Response and Energy Efficiency, Tendril offers unparalleled insight into energy decisions, making the Energy Marketplace a reality. The company is venture backed by VantagePoint Venture Partners, Good Energies, RRE Ventures and GE. For more information, visit www.tendrilinc.com.

About UISOL

Utility Integration Solutions, Inc. (UISOL) is the utility industry systems integration specialist. UISOL offers a range of integration services and software solutions to help its utility clients transform their business performance through the power of smart integration for demand response, smart grid, advanced metering, meter data management, market operations and more. UISOL award-winning DRBizNet© is the leading software platform for demand response management and the integration of distributed energy resources in the utility industry, currently enabling over 9000 MW of demand response from 450,000 end-use customers in fourteen states. The current deployment at utilities and ISOs span more than half of the states in the US. Visit www.uisol.com for more information.

About PJM Interconnection

PJM Interconnection, founded in 1927, ensures the reliability of the high-voltage electric power system serving 54 million people in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. PJM coordinates and directs the operation of the region’s transmission grid, which includes 6,038 substations and 56,500 miles of transmission lines; administers a competitive wholesale electricity market; and plans regional transmission expansion improvements to maintain grid reliability and relieve congestion. Visit PJM at www.pjm.com.