Nexant helps utilities and other program administrators design, implement, track, administrate and evaluate demand-side management (DSM) incentive programs, public-benefit-charge-funded energy efficiency programs, targeted DSM, and newer approaches that utilize turnkey DSM programs as an energy resource.
Our experience with all aspects of DSM programs-including both energy efficiency and demand response (DR)-enables us to help utilities that seek to reduce and manage demand, operate effectively, manage customer relationships, leverage the latest technologies for the benefit of customers, and mitigate the uncertainty and risk in today's energy business.
DSM Program Design and Implementation
Nexant's senior DSM staff draw on their collective experience to help clients craft DSM programs that better manage customers' energy use and demand, augment supply, and control utility costs. We also deliver workshops to increase third-party participation in utility programs and train utility program personnel. Programs that Nexant has designed, implemented, administered, and evaluated run the gamut of energy efficiency and demand management initiatives delivered through utilities and public agencies.
Our comprehensive program design and implementation services encompass:
- Regulatory support
- Market assessment of potential savings
- Analysis of program costs and benefits
- Program design services
- Interface with trade allies
- Program marketing
- Application processing and due diligence review
- Project quality assurance
- Measurement and verification
- Reporting
- Evaluation
Our program administration services include not only designing programs and taking them to market, but serving as the interface with customers, performing site inspections, and making incentive payments.
Nexant consultants, engineers, program managers, and analysts provide the full range of skills needed to assess market conditions as well as design and implement programs tailored to meet individual clients' needs.
Demand-Response Program Design and Implementation
Demand response programs are with a powerful tool for regulators, utilities, and other stakeholders as a means of mitigating system reliability concerns; yet the success of DR will clearly depend not on its conceptual validity, but rather on how well the actual programs are designed and positioned in the marketplace.
Nexant is one of a select few firms involved with efforts to develop, market, and implement demand responsive programs for large commercial customers in California and New England. Through our hands-on experience with these and other DR programs, we have acquired a deep understanding of the application, operation, performance, and limitations of DR technologies, and how market penetration of these technologies can be augmented by proper program design and marketing.
Program Marketing
To determine whether all necessary and effective steps are being taken to market DSM and DR programs, Nexant evaluates marketing campaigns, including the effectiveness of collateral materials and program incentives, and recommends both short- and long-term enhancements in program delivery and components.
Nexant also develops program-marketing materials, such as case studies, brochures, fact sheets, and mailers, and presents training workshops for utility account representatives, program field staff, and third-party service providers.
Program Evaluation, Measurement, and Verification
Nexant is internationally recognized for its measurement and verification (M&V) expertise, having been responsible for many of the guidelines used in the industry as well as the M&V of hundreds of megawatts of energy savings.
Nexant approaches the evaluation of the performance and effectiveness of public benefit programs as a vital activity that must both satisfy the reporting requirements of current publicly funded programs and inform the design and implementation of future programs.
Our approaches and methods, developed over nearly 20 years of providing evaluation, measurement and verification services, not only demonstrate whether goals have been met but result in information that is valuable to utilities' efforts to continually improve the performance and effectiveness of their DSM programs.
Local Integrated Resource Planning and Targeted DSM
In localities where infrastructure delivery channels are constrained, Nexant consultants have applied their experience incorporating distributed energy resources into utility T&D planning. Nexant works with utilities to assess whether distributed energy resources (including load management and targeted DSM) can be brought to bear in sufficient quantity and at low-enough cost that the utility can defer capital investments associated with expanding its T&D infrastructure.
As part of its local IRP consulting, Nexant advises utilities on appropriate applications of targeted DSM programs. Rather than applying a portfolio of DSM programs across a service territory, utilities may obtain greater results per dollar of program investment by promoting them selectively in constrained areas.
With our combined experience and expertise in DSM and DR program implementation, small-scale distributed generation technologies, locational marginal pricing, and T&D project planning, Nexant is uniquely qualified to assist utility clients in assessing alternatives to traditional transmission and/or distribution infrastructure improvements.
DSM Procurement
Once thought solely to provide societal benefits through energy efficiency, DSM is helping utilities to align resources with demand by gradually taking on a supply portfolio procurement role. Under new outsourcing and contractual arrangements, utilities are pursuing long-term DSM resources as a component in their supply procurement portfolio-and paying on the basis of "negawatts" delivered. Nexant supports this approach by delivering turnkey demand-focused programs that minimize the distribution company's financial, performance, and regulatory risks.
|
James D. Bradford, PhD, PE
Senior Vice President, Energy and Carbon Management
Tel: +1 303 402 2482
Email:
|
