Demand Response Participant Selection System
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current demand response systems are unable to target specific customers for participating in scheduled demand response events, leading to unnecessary burden on customers who may not have agreed to participate or reside in appropriate locations, and fail to validate or verify customer enrollment status and policy limitations, potentially violating agreements.
Innovation Solution
A computing device and demand response system that receives customer data including location, policy limitations, and participation history to select and verify participants for demand response events, ensuring only appropriate customers receive signals and preventing agreement violations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the utility transmits demand response signals to all customers, then the utility can manage peak load conditions, but customers who have not agreed to participate or reside in inappropriate locations are unnecessarily burdened
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different treatment to different customers based on their specific characteristics (enrollment status, geographic location, participation history). By segmenting the customer base and applying localized selection criteria, the system transmits signals only to appropriate customers rather than universally, thus maintaining peak load management effectiveness while eliminating unnecessary burdens on ineligible customers.
Solution Approach 2:
The system divides the customer population into distinct segments based on enrollment status in demand response programs, geographic location within service territory, and participation history. This segmentation enables targeted signal transmission to specific customer groups that meet predetermined criteria, resolving the contradiction between comprehensive coverage and selective targeting.
2Productivity
If the utility transmits multiple signals to the same customer, then more demand response events can be communicated, but policy limitations in customer agreements may be violated
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary verification of customer eligibility before transmitting demand response signals. By checking enrollment status, geographic location, and participation history in advance, the system ensures that signal transmission complies with customer agreement policy limitations. This preliminary action prevents agreement violations while maintaining effective communication of demand response events.
Solution Approach 2:
The system incorporates feedback mechanisms that track customer participation history and enforce policy limitations. By monitoring how many signals have been transmitted to each customer and comparing against agreement terms, the system provides feedback control that prevents excessive signal transmission and ensures compliance with customer agreements.
3Ease of operation
If the utility does not verify customer eligibility, then signal transmission is simpler and faster, but customer enrollment status and policy limitations cannot be validated
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically verifies customer eligibility by retrieving and checking enrollment status, geographic location, and participation history from stored data. This self-service verification process eliminates the need for manual eligibility checking while ensuring reliable validation of customer qualifications before signal transmission.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary eligibility verification before signal transmission by checking customer enrollment status, geographic location, and participation history. This advance verification ensures that only eligible customers receive signals, maintaining both operational efficiency and reliability of customer qualification validation.
Data Source
AI summary
A computing device for use with a demand response system is provided. The computing device includes a communication interface for receiving customer data of a plurality of customers, wherein the customer data includes at least a location, a policy limitation, a participation history, and an enrollment status for each customer. A processor is coupled to the communication interface and programmed to select at least one participant from the plurality of customers, based on the customer data, to participate in at least one demand response event. The processor is further programmed to verify that the selected participant, based on the customer data, satisfies at least one precondition to receive at least one signal representative of the demand response event.