New Hampshire Electric Cooperative Goes Live with Three New Residential and Small and Medium-Sized Business Demand Response Programs Using AutoGrid DROMS

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AutoGrid enables NHEC to implement consumer-friendly programs, using Internet-connected water heaters, space heaters and air conditioners, to lower members’ electricity costs.

REDWOOD CITY, CALIF. — April 14, 2016 — AutoGrid Systems, the leader in Energy Internet software, today announced that the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (NHEC), one of the largest consumer-owned electric distribution utilities in New England, has launched three new residential and small and medium-sized business Demand Response (DR) programs using AutoGrid’s award-winning Demand Response Optimization & Management System (DROMS) solution.

With the intelligent, scalable, cloud-based DROMS solution, NHEC will be able to shift the energy consumption of members who voluntarily choose to enroll in its “Go Beyond the Peak!” programs to periods when its demand and other electricity charges are low, enabling it to reduce its members’ energy bills. The DR programs launched by NHEC include Behavioral Demand Response (BDR), Time of Use (TOU)/Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) and Direct Load Control (DLC) programs. The “Peak Days” BDR program notifies members when a DR event will occur, encouraging them to lower their energy use during an event. Members in the “Peak Planner” TOU/CPP program agree to reduce their energy use during DR events, securing lower electricity charges and bill credits in return. The “Peak Plus” DLC program connects directly to members’ Internet-connected water heaters, space heaters and window air conditioners, lowering the energy these devices use when a DR event occurs.

With these programs, NHEC can reduce its capacity and transmission charges, lowering its overall wholesale power and delivery costs.

“For NHEC, the member experience was the most important consideration for us as we designed and rolled out our demand response programs,” said Heather Manypenny, power resources executive at NHEC. “The flexibility offered by AutoGrid DROMS is enabling us to manage a wide range of behavioral and automated programs across all our member classes and allows us to offer the right programs to our members not only today, but well into the
future.”

A Demand Response Management System Focused on the End-Consumer Experience

Utilizing open standards and a secure cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, AutoGrid DROMS enabled NHEC to rapidly develop and quickly launch these consumer-friendly demand response programs. NHEC is using AutoGrid DROMS to manage its members’ end-to-end experience throughout the DR program lifecycle – from enrollment and device provisioning, to personalized notifications and timely consumer feedback. AutoGrid DROMS features:

  • A Consumer-Friendly Interface: Members can enroll in, monitor, and manage their participation in DR programs and events using AutoGrid’s NHEC-branded online consumer portal interface.
  • Streamlined Device Provisioning APIs and Flow: AutoGrid DROMS enables a streamlined device provisioning flow where the field services team can have an installer come on-site to install the load control device and easily provision it in the DR program through a mobile app.
  • Personalized Customer Engagement Tools: NHEC uses AutoGrid DROMS to communicate with its members and their devices using highly personalized communication tools. In addition, with AutoGrid’s built-in big data analytics, NHEC can determine which members to reach out for each DR program, lowering their marketing costs to increase participation.
  • Integrated Customer Analytics: DROMS supports behavioral DR, dynamic pricing programs as well as fully automated DR programs, allowing NHEC to manage all its programs from a single, unified dashboard. Built-in customer analytics also help NHEC develop programs that meet the needs of its members.
  • Responsive Customer Feedback: AutoGrid’s built-in big data analytics capabilities perform measurement and verification analysis on each individual member’s event response as soon as the interval usage data becomes available from NHEC’s smart meter system and delivers this information back to the member in a timely manner.

Unlike other siloed approaches for managing individual demand response programs, AutoGrid DROMS is fully integrated into NHEC’s IT infrastructure and is fully open-standards compliant, allowing NHEC to scale up and add additional distributed energy resource (DER) services in the future from a single, convenient dashboard.

“NHEC’s launch of these three new demand response programs shows how utilities can use the Energy Internet to lower their costs and deeply engage with their customers,” said Dr. Amit Narayan, CEO of AutoGrid. “We are proud to be partnering with NHEC as they demonstrate how the Energy Internet can make our energy system cleaner, more affordable and more reliable.”

About NHEC

NHEC is a member-owned electric distribution cooperative serving 83,000 members in 115 New Hampshire communities. Headquartered in Plymouth, NHEC serves members in nine operating districts: Colebrook, Sunapee, Andover, Plymouth, Meredith, Conway, Alton, Ossipee and Raymond.

About AutoGrid

AutoGrid transforms data into the world’s cleanest, most reliable and most affordable source of power. The company’s Energy Internet software solutions enable global utilities, electricity retailers, energy service providers and energy project developers to manage distributed energy resources in real time and at scale. Its Energy Data Platform (EDP) and Predictive Controls™ technologies leverage petabytes of smart meter, sensor and third party data along with powerful data science and large-scale network optimization algorithms to predict, optimize, and control demand & supply resources across the Energy Internet.

The world’s leading energy companies, such as E.ON, Bonneville Power Administration, Florida Power & Light, Southern California Edison, Eneco, Portland General Electric, City of Palo Alto Utilities and CLEAResult are using AutoGrid’s software to improve their operations, integrate renewables and drive deeper engagement with their customers. AutoGrid’s technology is also embedded in software products from leading vendors, such as Schneider Electric, Silver Spring Networks and NTT Data.

Press Contact
Jason Brown
Eastwick for AutoGrid
+1 646-780-5193
jason@eastwick.com

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