Chicago’s skyline makes for postcard-perfect snapshots, but the cost to power the cityscape is enormous. Excelon Corp., the parent company of Chicago provider ComEd, is the largest nuclear plant operator in the country, maintaining a “fleet” of 20 nuclear power plants running at 93 percent capacity -- and the grid is still a fragile thing. In 1999, before Excelon tightened its operations under CEO John Rowe, a blackout crippled Chicago’s downtown Loop.
However, there’s an innovative energy-management option that’s becoming available to building operators. It’s called “demand response,” and it makes perfect sense for Chicago’s bustling skyline.
Demand response allows utility companies to pay building operators a monthly premium to keep their energy usage flexible, especially during peak times. If usage peaks, energy companies are then allowed to restrict output to clients that receive demand response subsidies. Make sense? An article by Henry Yoshimura in Buildings (an excellent publication on the commercial building industry) breaks down the gist of demand response.
“By implementing DR, your company receives monthly payments just for being available to shift or curtail electricity use when the grid is overloaded and/or wholesale prices spike. On these days, the regional grid operator may ask you to curtail energy use rapidly to avoid emergencies as a condition of receiving these monthly payments. A company that relieves stress on the grid by switching to electricity produced by a back-up generator during such periods could receive similar payments. (Note: Make sure that using your generator in this fashion complies with all federal, state, and local environmental regulations.)Essentially, your company will be contributing ‘nega-watts’ to the grid, thereby providing utilities and the grid operator a valuable level of reliability insurance. And, businesses are well aware of the costs associated with power outages and blackouts. The August 2003 power outage that darkened most of the eastern United States cost more than $6 billion in lost goods and services alone.”
In addition to switching to an electric generator, demand-response clients are also encouraged to embrace simple energy-saving solutions, like turning off computers overnight and using more natural sunlight to illuminate cubicle farms.
Optimistically speaking, demand response seems tailor-made to reduce stress on the national grid while energy companies continue to transition toward renewable resources. Exelon has taken an important symbolic step with its new headquarters location in the Chase Tower. The energy-efficient interior space, which opens this month, is seeking platinum certification from the US Green Building Council's LEED rating system.
And beyond that, well, it just makes good sense to turn off the lights before you leave.
