Staff at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in December released a report on demand response and advanced metering.
This report is the FERC staff’s twentieth annual report on demand response and advanced metering, which is required annually by Section 1252(e)(3) of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005).
The report said that from 2022 to 2023, the number of advanced meters in operation in the United States increased by approximately 9.1 million to a total of 128.4 million, representing a 7.6% annual increase.
According to EIA data, the 128.4 million advanced meters in operation represent 76.8% of the167.2 million total meters in operation across all customer classes.
The nationwide advanced meter penetration rate for each customer class was greater than 70%. At the regional level, the advanced meter penetration rate continues to vary by Census Division and customer class.
In the Pacific and West South Central Census Divisions, advanced meter penetrations rates were greater than 80% for each customer class.
From 2023 to 2024, total demand response participation in the seven U.S. wholesale markets increased by approximately 217 MW or 0.7 %, to a total of 33,272 MW. Demand response totals increased in five of those wholesale markets but declined in two.
Approximately 6.5% of the wholesale market peak demand for all Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs) could be met by demand response resources in 2024. The sum of the non-coincident peak demands across all RTOs and ISOs was approximately 515 GW in 2024, compared to 512 GW in 2023.
State regulators continue to consider and approve proposals to implement different types of time-varying rates and other opportunities to leverage flexible demand, FERC said.
For example, in August 2024 the Maine Public Utilities Commission initiated an inquiry to consider the implementation of time-of-use rates for customers of the state’s independently owned utilities.
State governments also took actions exploring, or enabling the use of, flexible loads and distributed energy resources (DERs) for peak demand reduction.
For example, the governor of Virginia signed a law directing Dominion Energy to launch a virtual power plant (VPP) pilot program consisting of DER aggregations totaling up to 450 MW.
Demand response is defined as changes in electric usage by demand-side resources from their normal consumption patterns in response to changes in the price of electricity over time, or to incentive payments designed to induce lower electricity use at times of high wholesale market prices or when system reliability is jeopardized.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) defines advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) (also referred to as “advanced meters” throughout the report) as meters that measure and record usage data, at a minimum, in hourly intervals and provide usage data at least daily to energy companies and may also provide data to consumers.
The information presented in the report is based on publicly available data that is used to estimate demand response potential in retail and wholesale markets.
Consistent with the method first adopted in the 2021 report, this report presents data according to the nine U.S. Census Divisions, broken down by state, to continue to fulfill the regional reporting requirements of EPAct 2005.
