How can I model demand charge management?

What is a Demand Charge?

Most common with large electricity and commercial consumers, demand charges are additional utility charges based on the highest KW demand during the billing cycle. Some utilities are introducing new demand charges for residential rates. 

For example if a customer consumes a max of 100kW on a given day during the on-peak hours and their utility rate has a non-tiered demand charge priced at $15/kW:

Demand Charge = 100 kW x $15/kW = $1500

• Remember this charge is in addition to charges 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 EverBright?

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 section.  You will be required to enter a kW demand cap.  Upon saving, EverBright will automatically smooth your demand during on-peak hours to ensure your demand does not exceed the cap.  The EverBright 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 is too low for the demand to be shifted within that peak period.  When the entered cap is too low, 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 EverBright 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:

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@goeverbright.com.  

• EverBright 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@goeverbright.com with the utility, tariff name, the job url, and a request to use demand management.