Interim Report for PowerShift
Changing energy systems—from the fuels that generate electricity and the ways in which utilities interact with customers, to the role of increasingly mature energy efficiency programs—require all energy industry players to think differently about customer service offerings. Since 2000, when the statewide energy efficiency utility Efficiency Vermont began offering demand-side management (DSM) services, the primary objective of most energy efficiency programs has been to provide least-cost electric energy supply for Vermonters.
Building on lessons from the 2018 Assessment of Demand Response Capability and Effectiveness research and development project where Efficiency Vermont investigated where existing efficiency program activities might complement existing distribution utility-led demand response services, Efficiency Vermont and Washington Electric Co-op (WEC) are partnering on a two-year (2019-2020) project named PowerShift, which seeks to demonstrate the potential for water heaters to function as “virtual batteries” within the territory of this low density, residentially-focused Vermont utility.