Leaning into Demand Response programs for single and multi-family dwellings, business and moderate-income households

New Orleans, LA, March 1, 2023 – Arizona-based public utility Salt River Project (SRP) received top honors from the Association of Energy Services Professionals (AESP) at its annual AESP Energy Award Winners competition. Each year, AESP recognizes its members’ most outstanding achievements in a variety of categories to advance a cleaner energy future. The award for Innovation in Demand Flexibility, presented to EnergyHub client Salt River Project, showcases a years-long, customer-centric flexibility program that reaches all customer segments including single-family homes, multi-family homes, businesses, and limited to moderate-income households.

SRP set aggressive decarbonization goals, anchored by a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent by 2035. That commitment was made against a backdrop of more frequent hot, erratic weather patterns that are increasing stress on the grid across the nation, but especially in the west where SRP’s service territory is located. Achieving those goals requires a program design that maximizes customer participation to rapidly scale the flexibility resource.

Eamonn Urey, product manager at SRP, said, “This is a changing, dynamic environment. We see it on the news and in changing weather patterns. Further, we see it in how we are switching base load to renewables. Overall, we need more and more demand response capacity to address both the resilience challenges ahead and to meet our decarbonization goals.”

SRP recognized that multi-family, businesses, and limited and moderate-income households are segments not historically included in demand response programs. The utility calculated that this untapped customer segment represented approximately 200,000 – 300,000 households and 28,000 businesses. Given the size of this segment, it is clear investing in these programs will deliver benefits for both SRP and its customers.

SRP partnered with EnergyHub to develop marketing campaigns and program designs to overcome barriers that traditionally block these segments from demand response programs. Example barriers include the complexity of installation in multi-family buildings and engagement challenges among traditionally marginalized communities. SRP is the first utility in the country to expand BYOT to businesses and multi-family segments with direct installation support and customer-tailored marketing campaigns.

About EnergyHub

EnergyHub is the leading grid-edge DERMS provider. Utilities rely on EnergyHub’s DERMS platform to manage all distributed energy resources to serve grid and market objectives. EnergyHub works with over 60 utilities in North America to manage more than 1.3 GW of flexible capacity. We empower utilities and their customers to create a clean, distributed energy future. For more information, visit www.energyhub.com