Implementation of a novel peak demand reduction scheme

The Irish transmission system operator introduced a novel demand side management (DSM) programme for winter 2003/2004 called the winter peak demand reduction scheme (WPDRS). The WPDRS rewards reliable reduction in electrical consumption below a participant-specified committed level (in MW) every business day between 5 pm and 7pm during the winter months. The proactive and simple nature of this DSM scheme succeeded in providing a higher consistency of load reduction relative to other schemes that send intermittent economic or reliability signals instructing participants to curtail. The scheme had 182 participants, with 106 MW of subscribed load reductions, corresponding to 25% of the historical peak load. Over the four winter months, participants reliably responded by reducing their consumption by 70 MW between 5 pm and 7 pm at a cost of €178/MWh. Winter 2004 was the first since 1989 with decreased peak demand on the previous year (down 1.6%), even though overall demand still grew by 2.8%. This paper describes the WPDRS´s structure, its results, and highlights areas for possible improvement.