Ancillary services are those functions performed by the equipment and people that generate, control, and transmit electricity in support of the basic services of generating capacity, energy supply, and power delivery. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) defined such services as those...

This report describes the structure of, and results from, a spreadsheet model. The model simulates markets for seven services: losses, regulation, spinning reserve, supplemental reserve,load following, energy imbalance, and voltage support. For completeness, the model also calculates costs for...

Recent electricity price spikes are painful reminders of the value that meaningful demand-side responses could bring to the restructuring US electricity system. Review of the aggregate offers made by suppliers confirms that even a modest increase demand elasticity could dramatically reduce these...

Short-term power fluctuations from wind farms may affect interconnected-grid operating costs and stability. With the increasing availability of wind power worldwide, this has become a concern for some utilities. Under electric industry restructuring in the United States, the impact of these...

California's recently enacted Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS, Senate Bill 1078) requires the state's investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to increase the renewable portion of their energy mix, with a goal of 20% renewable energy generation by 2017. Renewable generation projects will compete with...

In 1991, US electric utilities spent almost $1.8 billion on demand-side management (DSM) programs. These programs cut peak demands 5% and reduced electricity sales 1% that year. Utility projections suggest that these reductions will increase to 9% and 3%, respectively, by the year 2001. However,...

Over the past five years, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has been collecting data annually from U.S. electric utilities on their demand-side management (DSM) programs, both current and projected. The latest data cover activities for 1993 and projections for 1994 and 1998. In 1993,...

Historically, regulators imposed resource-planning rules on electric utilities because of the utility`s obligation to serve. Given that obligation, regulators wanted utilities to plan for and procure a portfolio of resources that provided customers with low-cost electricity, stable prices, and a...

In the energy arena, the greatest data needs concern the costs and performance of demand-side management (DSM) programs, which are likely to grow in size and importance. It is difficult to assess the contributions that utility DSM programs could make to resolving national energy problems because...

During the past few years, the costs and effects of utility demand-side management (DSM) programs have grown sharply. In 1989, US electric utilities spent 0.5% of revenues on such programs and cut total electricity consumption by 0.6%. By 1992, these numbers had increased to 1.3% and 1.2%,...