What is a Demand Charge?
Most common with large electricity and commercial consumers, demand charges are additional utility surcharges based on the highest KW demand during the billing cycle. Some utilities are introducing new demand charges for residential rates.
A customer consumes a max of 100kW on a given day during the on-peak hours. Let's assume the utility has a non-tiered demand charge priced at $15/kW:
Demand Charge = 100 kW x $15/kW = $1500
- Remember charge this is in addition to the the energy charge calculated based on kWh consumption
What is a Demand Management System?
A demand management system is an innovative technology that lets you automate when major appliances run during on-peak hours to make sure they don't run at the same time. With a demand management system, you can:
- Monitor and control your home's electric load.
- Reduce peak demand costs and help reduce your electric bill.
- Optimize when your home uses energy.
How does Demand Management work in Sighten?
Given a utility has demand charges, when you go to the project phase, then you can turn on demand management for the project in the details. You will be required to enter a kW demand cap. Upon saving, Sighten will automatically smooth your demand during on-peak hours to ensure your demand does not exceed the cap. The Sighten demand model will consider solar, storage and EE enhancements and their impact on demand. If the post project profile can be successfully shifted during peak hours, you will receive a green toast message saying the update was successful. The model does not remove any usage, it just redistributes under the max cap. Thus, it is possible to specify a demand cap that does not that does not allow the demand to be shifted. When a failure occurs, the min required cap will be displayed and the profile will not be updated. You can easily update the max cap, and re-apply the demand management.
There are two types of demand charges that Sighten currently models: On Peak and Monthly. When there are On Peak demand charges, the demand management model will only cap demand within the On-Peak hours of the rate schedule. Other rate schedules have demand charges based on the max 30 or 60 minute demand for a given month. In this second instance, the cap will apply to all hours of the month, for each month of the year.
Demand management is currently setup for the following utilities and rate schedules:
| Utility And Rate Schedule | Service Area | Rate Name | Demand Charge Bands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona Public Service Co | |||
| ECT-2 | Service area for AZ | Residential - Time of Use, Combined Advantage, Demand, 7PM-Noon | On Peak |
| ECT-1R | Service area for AZ | Residential - Low-Income, Time of Use, Combined Advantage, Demand | On Peak |
| R-2 | Service area for AZ | Residential - Saver Choice Plus | On Peak |
| R-3 | Service area for AZ | Residential - Saver Choice Max | On Peak |
| R-TECH | Service area for AZ | Residential - Saver Choice Tech Pilot | On Peak |
| ECT-2 | Service area for AZ | Residential - Low Income, Time of Use, Combined Advantage, Demand, 7PM-Noon | On Peak |
| Tucson Electric Power Co | |||
| TRRESD | Service area for AZ | Residential - Peak Demand | Monthly |
| TRRESD-RCP-PRS | Service area for AZ | Residential - Peak Demand | Monthly |
| TRRESDT | Service area for AZ | Residential Demand - Time-of-Use | Monthly |
| TRRESDT-RCP-PRS | Service area for AZ | Residential Demand - Time-of-Use | Monthly |
| Salt River Project | |||
| E-27 | Service area for AZ | Customer Generation for Residential | Monthly |
| E-27 P | Service area for AZ | Residential - Demand, Pilot Plan | On Peak |
| E-15 | Service area for AZ | Residential - Customer Generation Average Demand | Monthly |
Additional Notes
- Demand management is not automatically available for all organizations. If you would like to turn this functionality on for your account, please reach out to support@sighten.io.
- Sighten will need to manually add tariffs to work with the demand management functionality. If you have demand management turned on in your account and you do not see the functionality on a given job, please reach out to support@sighten.io with the utility, tariff name, the job url, and call out the need to use demand management.