Dynamic Pricing

A Smart Grid communications network allows utilities to move from a monthly billing cycle to dynamic pricing and Time-of-Use billing models. With the ability to automatically read meters at scheduled intervals, utilities can provide time- and demand-based pricing including:

• Time-of-Use (TOU) pricing – pricing tiers (i.e. off-peak, peak) are established to correspond to specific time intervals. Utilities can publish these rates to consumers to provide financial incentives to shift demand to off-peak hours and reduce overall consumption.
• Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) – a method of communicating pricing changes to consumers at spikes in peak demand to provide immediate financial incentives to shift energy demand.
• Real-Time Pricing (RTP) – the ability to not only change energy prices based on fluctuations in the cost of generation but also signal consumers (and consumer devices) to integrate demand-side applications to participate in load-shifting decisions.

A variety of price signals can be created by the utility operator using UnitySuite DSM:

• Override-able and non-override-able curtailment tasks for use with Direct Load Control programs, intermittent load programs, curtailment programs, emergency Demand Response events, and other dynamic pricing programs.  Curtailment tasks allow explicit control of device state (e.g. thermostat setpoint) or device control algorithms (e.g. load control duty cycle).
• Dynamic pricing structures including TOU and CPP – and for each TOU tier and CPP tier can specify default device state for thermostats (e.g. thermostat setpoint) and load controllers (e.g. on/off).  Dynamic pricing device state defaults are always override-able by the end consumer.

Learn more about Smart Grid Consumer Solutions from Trilliant.