Energy Assurance Study: Interim Report - Southwest Florida ...

PEAK LOAD DEMAND MANAGEMENTDescription: Peak Smart is a Commercialenergy conservation program builton the City of Tallahassee’s Smart Gridplatform. It is supported with federalfunding from the U.S. Departmentof Energy’s Smart Grid InvestmentGrant program, an ARRA project. It is a 2-year voluntary pilotprogram launched in July 2012.Participation:• Target audience is large commercial customers.• Early adopters include: City Hall, Tallahassee Airport, Publix,Target, Kohls, and Marpan Recycling.• Participating customers lower their energy usage for briefperiods during peak utility events, the process is automatedand effortless.• Participating customers are able to identify future energysaving opportunities through near real-time monitoringof energy consumption.• Participating customers receive a demand credit on theirmonthly utility bill.• Eligible customers enroll for free. The utility covers equipmentand installation costs.Benefits:• Improves electric grid reliability, reducing the likelihoodof outages• Helps defer need to build costly power plants• Provides lower cost alternative to running older powerplants or purchasing energy off the grid• Helps keep utility operating costs low so that savings canbe passed on to everyone.It is anticipated that there might twenty events annually. Atthis writing, the City of Tallahassee has 5MW of peak shavingcapacity enrolled in the program and plans on twelve more fora total of 17MW by end of August 2013.Case Studied PUBLIX Supermarkets:There are 9 Publix supermarkets in Tallahassee and Leon Countythat participated in the Peak Smart program. All of these storesare equipped with dozens of chillers and freezers for productprotection and a multiple air handlers and heat and cool unitsfor customer comfort. A few were designed with skylights toaugment interior lighting, but that feature is not part of thestores’ energy balance. The participating stores each haveon-site generating capability of 350 to 400KW. Joining the City’sprogram early in August of 2012, the store’s managers are to benotified at least 24 hours ahead of a forecasted peak demand.This is based on prior day’s experience in the grid and forecasttemperatures. Each store is equipped with a large emergencygenerator installed primarily to protect chilled or frozen foodproduct during temporary outages and to permit the safeevacuation of a facility during a power outage.When called upon, the stores would be switched over toemergency generator power, going off-grid during the peaksaving the electric utility, higher charges, preventing overheatingof transmission lines, and preventing premature constructionof additional generating capacity. For the participation in thestudy, the participants are charged a lower rate year-round andget a fuel cost rebate for cost of fuel used during the voluntaryswitch to on-site generation. The incentive offered is a 3.00/KWcredit each month. Each manager is allowed two voluntary optouts if the planned generator powered peak is not convenientfor maintenance or other reasons.Total Cost: The Project is funded by a 50:50 grant from the U.S.DOE and is implemented through a contract with Honeywell forinstallation of automated equipment, internet interfacing andprogram management. It is uncertain if the City of Tallahasseewould have pursued the project without ARRA/DOE funding.Fiscal cutbacks shadow future funding of DOE programs and theexpansion of similar programs to other utilities. Total cost forthe installed control and override systems at the participatingprivate commercial institutions was $16 million with half of theinvestment shared by the City. Each facility already had anappropriately sized emergency stand-by generator.Return on Invetment: The project’s ROI is not calibrated indollars saved, but in peak generating capacity and cost avoidancefor additional units. No hard dollar value was expressedby the City of Tallahassee Contact when questioned.ENERGY ASSURANCE STUDY | 37