Integrated Load Shedding Project

With the impending energy shortages and the steeply rising costs of constructing new power generation facilities, the electric utilities in the US have found it economically advantageous to encourage major consumers of electricity to curtail usage, mainly during the peak consumption hours between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. in the summer months. The local telephone companies, while not a very big user of utility power, have a built-in advantage with the availability of standby engine-alternator set in most central offices. The Pacific Bell engineers and the staff of Southern California Edison (SCE-the local electric utility serving a major portion of Southern California) have been negotiating over the ligistics and the economic incentives for implementing this Load Shed Project. This paper attempts to describe the Load Shed Project in terms of its economic merits and the computer-based network which centralizes the control and monitoring process for more than 200 stations.