Market potential and development of automated demand response system

Active participation of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) such as controllable load and battery storage is expected to reduce costs of large penetration of photovoltaic (PV) generation systems connected to a distribution system. This paper assesses the market potential of demand response (DR) programs using questionnaire survey data in Japan. The sum of potential is about 4.7% of estimated peak load of commercial and industrial customers and about 2.3% of the system peak load (56, 405MW) in Tokyo Electric Power Company's area in 2009. We also conducted a preliminary field experiment of peak-cutting demand response control of air conditioning and lighting in an office space located in Tokyo during 2009 summer to develop automated demand response system. Thermal environment of the controlled space and worker comfort were also surveyed in parallel with electric load measurement of controlled equipment. Experiment results showed that two DR control strategies could reduce about 10% and 23% of a peak demand of the office space during DR period, respectively. However, the adopted DR control strategies affected worker's comfort and their subjective working efficiency evidently. We are developing more acceptable control strategy.