In this study, we examine the arrangements for and experiences of end-use loads providing ancillary services (AS) in five electricity markets: Australia, the United Kingdom (UK), the Nordic market, and the ERCOT and PJM markets in the United States. Our objective in undertaking this review of international experience was to identify specific approaches or market designs that have enabled customer loads to effectively deliver various ancillary services (AS) products. We hope that this report will contribute to the ongoing discussion in the U.S. and elsewhere regarding what institutional and technical developments are needed to ensure that customer loads can meaningfully participate in all wholesale electricity markets.

The restructuring of regional and national electricity markets in the U.S. and around the world has been accompanied by numerous problems, including generation capacity shortages, transmission congestion, wholesale price volatility, and reduced system reliability. These problems have created new opportunities for technologies and business approaches that allow load serving entities and other aggregators to control and manage the load patterns of wholesale and retail end-users they serve. Demand Response Programs, once called Load Management, have re-emerged as an important element in the fine-tuning of newly restructured electricity markets. During the summers of 1999 and 2001 they played a vital role in stabilizing wholesale markets and providing a hedge against generation shortfalls throughout the U.S.A. Demand Response Programs include "traditional" capacity reservation and interruptible/curtailable rates programs as well as voluntary demand bidding programs offered by either Load Serving Entities (LSEs) or regional Independent System Operators (ISOs). The Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) has been monitoring the development of new types of Demand Response Programs both in the U.S. and around the world. This paper provides a survey and overview of the technologies and program designs that make up these emerging and important new programs.

Price-responsive load (PRL) programs vary significantly in overall design, the complexity of relationships between program administrators, load aggregators, and customers, and the availability of "enabling technologies". Enabling technologies include such features as web-based power system and price monitoring, control and dispatch of curtailable loads, communications and information systems links to program participants, availability of interval metering data to customers in near real time, and building/facility/end-use automation and management capabilities. Two state agencies - NYSERDA in New York and the CEC in California - have been conspicuous leaders in the demonstration of demand response (DR) programs utilizing enabling technologies. In partnership with key stakeholders in these two states (e.g., grid operator, state energy agencies, and program administrators), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) surveyed 56 customers who worked with five contractors participating in CEC or NYSERDA-sponsored DR programs. We combined market research and actual load curtailment data when available (i.e., New York) or customer load reduction targets in order to explore the relative importance of contractor's program design features, sophistication of control strategies, and reliance on enabling technologies in predicting customer's ability to deliver load reductions in DR programs targeted to large commercial/industrial customers. We found preliminary evidence that DR enabling technology has a positive effect on load curtailment potential. Many customers indicated that web-based energy information tools were useful for facilitating demand response (e.g., assessing actual performance compared to load reduction contract commitments), that multiple notification channels facilitated timely response, and that support for and use of backup generation allowed customers to achieve significant and ! predictable load curtailments. We also found that 60-70 percent of the customers relied on manual approaches to implementing load reductions/curtailments, rather than automated load control response. The long-term sustainability of customer load curtailments would be significantly enhanced by automated load response capabilities, such as optimizing EMCS systems to respond to day-ahead energy market prices or load curtailments in response to system emergencies.