Energy Storage Case Study
Energy Storage Case Study
Take charge.
Energy Storage Saves Money and Delivers
Grid Benefits to Con Edison and NYISO
• More than two years of operating results validates Demand Energy technology, solution platform and economic business case for end customer
Our Client:
Glenwood Management
New York City
• Demonstrated software integration with the de-regulated and emerging transactive energy market in NYC
• Reduction of building demand, automation of demand response, and more, with advanced cloud-based energy management software
• Concurrently satisfy utility initiatives and building energy needs by aligning building peak load reduction with system peak to reduce grid stress
Utility deregulation creates MARKET opportunitY: The deregulation of the
power industry is providing options for power purchase and opportunities for customer-side-of-the-meter
load management that have never existed before. The variable pricing structures that are becoming
commonplace are potentially good for both the utility and their customer. Power companies can
use them to balance the load on existing generation, transmission and distribution equipment,
and consumers can use the fact that rates vary to shop for a “good deal.” But, to reap the full
benefits, commercial and industrial customers need to deploy systems to fully manage how
they buy and use energy.
Doing this poses challenges, however. Power users would like to have the flexibility to buy energy
at lower rates, but this often means buying it at times when other users don’t want it – typically
the middle of the night. Changing their business hours is not practical, and they don’t want to
constrain their operations in the middle of the day while rates are high. The solution is energy
storage. If a facility can buy energy when it is at a lower cost, store it, and use it when energy
is more costly, that facility has the potential to save a good deal of money.
Another dynamic involves opportunities to capitalize on market incentives that require reduction
Figure 1. The Barclay Tower in
Manhattan.
in consumption to gain financial benefits. Some utilities are paying customers to reduce
their loads at critical times. With the ability to release stored energy to meet a portion of the
building load, a facility can reduce its consumption of grid power and capture the rewards while
conducting “business as usual.”
Glenwood Management, an owner of high-end luxury apartments across New York City, is a
visionary and early adopter of intelligent energy storage. Glenwood has been working with
Demand Energy Networks, Inc. of Liberty Lake, Washington for the last four years to explore
how emerging technologies might save them money and support the grid in the emerging
Demand Energy Networks, Inc.
24001 East Mission Avenue,
Suite 102
Liberty Lake, Washington 99019
toll-free: +1.844.857.2871
direct: +1.509.255.7150
[email protected]
www.Demand-Energy.com
transactive energy market that has resulted from utility deregulation in New York.
Glenwood tests the benefits of energy storage: Glenwood contracted with
Demand Energy to install one of the earliest and largest behind-the-meter (BTM) energy storage systems in
the country in August of 2012 at the Barclay Tower, a 58-story luxury building in the Tribeca section
of Downtown Manhattan (Figure 1). Demand Energy’s Joule.System system, which contained
two megawatt-hours of storage, qualified Glenwood to receive Con Ed’s standby electrical rates
because the storage represented in excess of 15% of the building’s peak electrical load. This
means that the Barclay is charged a flat rate based on the building’s historic peak load, plus a
daily demand charge based on weekday usage between 8 AM and 10 PM.
Energy Storage Case Study
The Demand Energy system manages Glenwood’s daily
operation by downloading day-ahead pricing information
from the New York Independent System Operator
(NYISO) and using this data to make decisions on the
next day’s operations. One alternative is to limit the
building’s demand during operational hours (demand
capping), satisfying the need for high-cost power with
energy purchased earlier at a lower rate. Figure 2
shows how demand capping flattens the Barclay’s peak
power requirements on the utility, while still meeting
the building’s power needs.
Figure 2. Power usage graph
from the Barclay Tower showing
demand capping in effect
Alternatively, the system can support a different type of operation during critical power events or the summer
air-conditioning season (typically June through September). For both of these types of load
reduction programs, the Joule.System can be configured to release a constant power output for a
set amount of time, typically four hours in the afternoon. This type of load reduction helps lessen
the impact of high power draw from all users during a critical power event or a summer afternoon
that drives air-conditioning load. Both programs are available for an incentive from Con Edison,
NYSERDA, or NYISO depending upon the program specifics. Since the Barclay Tower is under a
Standby Power Rate, it can skip a days worth of typical demand reduction and change operation
to support these types of Critical Power events with minimal financial effect. This type of flexibility
is one of the reasons behind-the-meter energy storage systems poised to rapidly be deployed in
the NYC market.
During one critical period: the week of July 15, 2013, when the city was experiencing a heat wave and
NYISO and Con Ed were calling for significant load reductions, Demand Energy’s system in the
Barclay Tower went into demand response mode, delivering a 100 kW reduction of the building’s
500 kW peak load and maintaining this level of reduction for a period of four hours as required in
order to participate in the NYISO load reduction program. The system was able to use energy that
was purchased off-peak at 6 to 8 cents per kWh overnight to reduce building load when prices had
increased to 28 to 31 cents per kWh in the heat of the day. The building owner saved money, was
able to keep 100 kW of load operational since it was supplemented by the stored energy, and the
utility experienced lower demand at a critical time.
Also, if the Barclay Tower faces another extended outage
like what occurred during Hurricane Sandy, the critical power
support from the Joule.System will supply power to circuits
that supply water, emergency lighting and the service
elevator.
The above examples illustrate how Intelligent Energy
Storage helps Glenwood Management derive multiple
economic benefits from this unique installation. “With the
Demand Energy system, we don’t need to reduce the total
consumption,” said Josh London, Glenwood’s Vice President
of management. “We can change our mode of usage and
select the operational mode that saves the most money for
Figure 3. Block diagram of Demand
Energy’s Joule.System installed at
the Barclay Tower
that day. We can store energy more aggressively at night
and on weekends and save a significant amount of money.”
Energy Storage Case Study
A look inside the Joule.System: A block diagram
of Demand Energy’s Joule.System is shown in Figure 3. The system
incorporates three core elements with the key element being
a cloud-based control system that applies advanced algorithms
with dynamic learning capabilities to automate and optimize
decisions about energy utilization. Joule.System integrates a
massive cloud-based data store with device control, back office
support software, business logic and security services utilizing
a distributed messaging system. The software tracks and
predicts the price of power to identify savings opportunities,
and measures real-time energy demand at the building level.
Joule.System’s controls ensure that stored energy can be
Figure 4. The Joule.System’s
dashboard enables building owners
and managers to monitor and
configure the system.
immediately deployed to respond to demand, either from
increased needs locally, or driven by utilities’ demand response programs, with no impact to the
building’s operation or the living conditions for those working inside it. The system’s big data
analytics leverages cloud-based data storage that is inherently scalable and highly reliable, with
data being replicated throughout the system and secured via encryption.
The Joule.System’s browser-based graphical user interface (ref. Figure 4) is also a cloud-resident
application that provides an intuitive and convenient way for facility managers to configure the
system and monitor its operation. The dashboard gives Glenwood personnel the ability to monitor
the load and show the benefits of daily demand capping and demand response to critical events.
At the core of the Joule.System hardware architecture are the power conversion and energy storage systems.
The power conversion system accepts and conditions power from multiple DC and AC input sources.
The energy storage system manages the energy storage battery array (see Figure 5). The system is
technology agnostic and capable of adapting to future advances in battery chemistries and power
Figure 5. The Joule.System is
technology agnostic, – utilizing the
most appropriate power conversion
(inverter) and battery technology that
is most appropriate for the energy
storage application and business case.
conversion technologies.
Without the intelligence and automated control provided by a real-time system such as Demand
Energy’s, facility managers would need to respond manually, reducing building loads when necessary,
impacting building operations and livability. With the Joule.System in place, managers are freed to
focus on establishing cost-cutting strategies that are implemented automatically.
Intelligent Energy Storage supports intelligent power
management: The deregulated market opens up a wealth of possibilities for saving
money, but consumers need to take a wide view of building operations to reap the full benefit
of intelligent power management. As the Barclay example shows, the solution is about much
Take charge.
more than managing energy storage. End customers are best qualified to make decisions on
Demand Energy Networks, Inc.
24001 East Mission Avenue,
Suite 102
Liberty Lake, Washington 99019
toll-free: +1.844.857.2871
direct: +1.509.255.7150
[email protected]
www.Demand-Energy.com
and storage at the edge of the grid is the key to managing our power resources in the future.
© 2015 Demand Energy Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. 2/15
storage, but consumers and utilities both stand to benefit, as intelligent control of power use
Smart systems can manage a diversity of power sources (including solar and wind power), and
new power uses such as electric vehicle charging, while taking advantage of utility incentives
aimed at helping utilities maximize the use of their resources. With intelligent controls, the
system has the capability to stack different revenue streams and economic models for the
benefit of all.