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Home Energy Magazine Online March/April 1994
TRENDS
The State of DSM End-Use Monitoring
The results are in on a survey partially funded by Long Island Lighting
Company (LILCO) to look at end-use monitoring in existing demand-side
management (DSM) programs. Utility consultant North Fork Retrofit mailed out
657 surveys to utilities, energy service companies (ESCOs), consultants,
research organizations, and governmental/regulatory agencies in the United
States, Canada and around the world. As of December 1993, 19% of the sample had
responded.
Of those responding to the survey, 65% are currently using end-use monitoring
devices, or are planning to begin monitoring in the near future; 30% are
planning monitoring projects; and 22% are not currently considering any
monitoring projects. "Guiding DSM" is the number one purpose given for
monitoring, with only 7.2% ticking "Regulatory Mandate" as the motivation. Of
the respondents who said they are not monitoring end uses, 33% said they use
other data; 31% cited a lack of mandates; 19% said it was not cost-effective;
and 17% checked "not applicable."
According to the survey responses, the East and West Coasts are the biggest
markets for end-use monitoring devices, with the Western Systems Coordination
Council reporting 3,094 devices, the Mid-Atlantic Area Council at 2,300, and
the Northeast Power Coordinating Council reporting 1,124. These numbers are
skewed, however, by two utilities who reported particularly large inventories
(Southern California Edison reported 2,000 residential devices, and Jersey
Central Power & Light reported 1,600 commercial and industrial devices).
The survey indicates that data is collected, on average, every 30 days,
although respondents spanned a range, from online, instantaneous data access to
collection every two months. Devices were left in place for an average of 1.6
years in commercial and industrial settings and 1.8 years in residential
settings. Monitoring devices are placed mostly in commercial and industrial
facilities, which also use more expensive multi-channel devices, although
respondents also reported significant use of multi-channel devices in the
residential sector. Lower-cost, single-use devices--accumulated time or TOU
(time-of-use)--account for 42% of all monitoring devices reported in the
survey. Less than one-third of these simpler devices are accumulated time
loggers monitoring either lights or appliances/motors. Of these lower cost
devices, 68.4% are TOU, and 89% of the TOU devices are light-loggers.
Respondents most frequently identified load profiling as their most important
need, followed in descending order by kWh, peak kW, run-time, on/off, power
factor, RMS amps, voltage, and set end-use monitoring intervals.
Nearly two-thirds of the respondents are now recovering DSM costs or are in the
process of establishing DSM cost recovery through their rate base. The portion
of project expenditures going to devices dropped from 30% in 1992 to 15% in
1993, while total expenditures on monitoring projects increased by 8% for the
same period, with total DSM increasing by 28%.
-- Frazer Dougherty
Frazer Dougherty is principal of North Fork Retrofit, an energy consulting
company in Greenpoint, New York that provides building diagnostics and produces
accumulated-time monitoring devices.
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