Demand response targeting using big data analytics

The drive towards more sustainable power supply systems has enabled significant growth of renewable generation. This in turn has pushed the rollout of demand response (DR) programs to address a larger population of consumers. Utilities are interested in enrolling small and medium sized customers that can provide demand curtailment during periods of shortfall in renewable production. It then becomes important to be able to target the right customers among the large population, since each enrollment has a cost. The availability of high resolution information about each consumers demand consumption can significantly change how such targeting is done. This paper develops a methodology for large scale targeting that combines data analytics and a scalable selection procedure. We propose an efficient customer selection method via stochastic knapsack problem solving and a simple response modeling in one example DR program. To cope with computation issues coming from the large size of data set, we design a novel approximate algorithm.