TOU Communication Strategies
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The university I work for has just moved to a Time-of-Use billing arrangement with our local utility company. This means, of course, that we pay varying costs for our energy use based on the time of day and the rate at which the energy is consumed. If we are able to shift energy use away from our utility's peak demand period, the university can realize significant cost savings.
If TOU billing is in effect for your institution, what, if anything, do you do to communicate the need for energy conservation during peak demand periods? Are students, employees and campus visitors alerted to the fact that your institution pays more for energy during these times? Or, is your energy management team simply doing things "behind the scenes" to conserve energy each day when peak demand occurs?
On a related note, I'm also curious to know whether institutions with TOU billing use separate communication strategies in summer and winter. As you know, peak demand hours vary during these seasons.
Thanks for any help that you can provide me!
GB
Gordie Bennett
Sustainability Manager
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
2233 Volunteer Boulevard, Room 208C
Knoxville, TN 37996
phone: 865.974.7780
fax: 865.974.7786
gbennet5@utk.edu
http://environment.utk.edu
I've heard of systems that text and/or e-mail during peak load times. For an example, check out "Flex Alerts". They will send a notification the day before, but you can also set up real-time notifications using a system like Pachube SMS Alerts.
-Alison
_________________________________________________
Alison Erlenbach, President of Campus Climate Solutions—Providing training and consulting to empower sustainability leaders. We are experts on sustainability in higher education.
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Hi Gordie,
I'm posting the below on behalf of Walter Simpson (long time AASHE supporter, author of our How to Guide to Climate Action Planning, among many other things).
"Many larger schools have been on time of use (TOU) billing for a long time, just like industrial customers. When I worked at the University at Buffalo (until 2 years ago when I retired) most of the response to TOU billing on a routine daily basis was done behind the scenes by facilities management via load shedding of larger pieces of equipment during anticipated high priced hours, i.e. mostly during hot spells during the summer months when the regional grid was near capacity. We also participated in a state program that paid us for being willing and able to shed significant increments of load when called upon during worst condition periods whether or not these conditions materialized during any given year. Your state may or may not have this kind of program. For us TOU billing provided us with day ahead pricing. If we anticipated extreme pricing the next day, we would send out a campus alert via e-mail and calls to department heads and also broadcast alerts to faculty and staff asking everyone to cooperate by turning off unnecessary lights and other equipment during peak hours. These steps save energy dollars but most importantly they saved energy and greenhouse gas emissions. Once, when the response to one of these campus-wide alerts was most impressive, we reminded the campus community of what they had done and thus what was possible when many people choose to save energy – and thus encouraged continued cooperation and participation in campus energy saving efforts."
Walter Simpson
Amherst, NY