viernes, diciembre 28, 2007

A.M. - Un pueblo adulto

Los políticos no quieren que el pueblo dominicano se haga adulto. Siempre están tratando de "protegerlo" de todos los males que le afligen y no lo dejan aprender de sus errores y ganarse la adultez como lo hemos hecho todos, levantándonos de nuestras caídas.

Hipólito, por ejemplo, justificó una vez la entrega tardía de la regalía pascual, en que había que evitar que lo gastaran todo antes de la Navidad. Franklyn Almeyda, justifica la veda de los fuegos artificiales para evitar accidentes lamentables por el mal manejo de los mismos.

Hay que establecer las medidas más absurdas porque la gente no sabe cuidarse a sí misma y los políticos tienen la "sagrada misión" de proteger a sus súbditos.

Debe ser por eso entonces que no nos dan educación de calidad ni buen servicio de salud, para que crezcamos mendigando desnutridos por la ayuda oficial.

Por ese camino nos hemos convertido en un país de pordioseros (limosnero es el que da limosnas), que tiene que esperarlo todo de la mano de los políticos que, de paso, se hacen multimillonarios. (Pero ese es un detalle insignificante, que no vale la pena mencionar)

Nos han castrado tanto que tenemos personas refugiadas en barrancones desde hace casi 30 años que todavía "esperan" por la ayuda del Gobierno. ¿Cómo es posible que alguien pueda pasarse 30 años esperando por una ayuda que no llega y seguir viviendo en las peores condiciones de existencia?

Eso sólo es posible porque nos han castrado. Nos dicen hasta qué hora podemos beber, las cosas que podemos hacer y las que no. Somos un pueblo enano, porque ya tenemos mayoría de edad, pero no nos dejan crecer, porque ese es el gran negocio.

atejada@diariolibre.com

Original publicado por Diario Libre el 23 de Diciembre del 2007, 9:34 PM


viernes, diciembre 21, 2007

Solar and Micro-Wind Breakthroughts?

In Solar and micro wind tax credits, jmaximus9 wrote on 12/13/2007:

I have a better idea, go back to a Carter era style subsides [http://www.dsireusa.org/ ] for installing solar and micro wind and other energy conserving device in the home and small biz sectors... Solar panels should be as common as decks or swimming pools in the southwest [http://renu.citizenre.com/index.php ]. Microwind should be the same way in the great plains [ http://www.windterra.com/ ]... None of these things need major breakthroughs, they are ready to use now... Power to people!


My response is as follows: That solar and micro-wind don’t “need major breakthroughs, they are ready to use now...” seems to be a very good point. However, it is a policy that leads to high inefficiencies under today’s power sector paradigms designed for demand as an externality, resulting in a total lack of coordination with the interconnected power system . EWPC is a paradigm shift which aim to increase total social welfare, by increasing power system coordination and economics while integrating demand.

The major breakthrough required is for those potential “disruptive technologies” to be integrated into power system planning, operation, and control. The glue to integrate them (demand integration) is the development of information technology (intensive) business model innovations by Second Generation Retailers - 2GRs.

To enable such integration, the most important issue is to shift the paradigm from the energy-making business to the energy-moving business (read please the article Nanosolar Breakthrough and the Old Paradigm, which was posted under the piece "Big Solar News: Nanosolar is shipping printed solar cells," also by Kevin Bullis). Solar, micro wind and other renewable investments should compete with in the process to integrate demand to the power system.

Any tax credits should be available to develop all the resources of the demand side, including those of information technology. The resources of the supply side which are energy intensive are already highly developed.


miércoles, diciembre 19, 2007

Nanosolar Breakthrough and the Old Paradigm

Nanosolar has made great progress as it has faced and apparently surpassed many barriers so far. However, they are still facing the most important barrier, which is the old electric power paradigm centered on central generating station.

Nanosolar’s product is in essence a distributed generation product, but as there is a strong barrier against the development of the resources of the demand side its first applications are supply side applications.

Michael Power writes a clear message to characterize the old business and the new business we are entering in the fifth technological revolution: "Electricity consumers becoming part-time producers – “pro-sumers” – and utilities shifting from “energy-making business” to “energy-moving business”…

There is a new paradigm that has emerged in the past two years, as an extension of research work done originally at MIT, where utilities shift to become just transportation utilities that do the actual movement for generators and customers (not just consumers anymore). Under the new paradigm a set of Second Generation Retailer - 2GR do the actual business transactions under competition. That paradigm is electricity without price controls (EWPC). To break down the barrier faced by Nanosolar and many innovative companies, the main mission of 2GRs is the development of the resources of the demand side.

For more details, please take a look at the EWPC article Demand Integration is NOT the Province of Politics. Under the article there is a set of comments which were posted under another Kevin Bullis TR Editors’ blog, explaining the EWPC market architecture and design paradigm shift paradigm and also responding davel’s questions “why is it important to slash energy use” to additional questions posed by frankellim.

This comment was posted as Old vs. New Paradigm under Technology Review Editors blog, post "Big Solar News: Nanosolar is shipping printed solar cells," by Kevin Bullis.

lunes, diciembre 17, 2007

Making Electricity a Commodity

To make electricity a commodity, a proper market architecture and design has emerged in the last two years, as the electricity without price controls (EWPC) paradigm. The structural flaws in the current incremental extensions of the vertical integration paradigm will not go away by implementing NERC mandatory requirements, as it prevents the necessary coordination leading to maximum social welfare.

Making Electricity a Commodity

By José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Systemic Consultant: Electricity

Copyright © 2007 José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without written permission from José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. This article is an unedited, an uncorrected, draft material of The EWPC Textbook. Please write to javs@ieee.org to contact the author for any kind of engagement.

Electricity is not a regular commodity like gasoline, unless it meets the requirement to properly managed systemic risk of system failure. To explain how to make electricity a commodity, I will try to convey the information which might be non-trivial on the EWPC articles Demand Integration is NOT the Province of Politics, To BE or NOT to BE Smart Metering and Market Research Doesn’t Work Yet for Demand Integration, and their respective hyperlinks, in another way.

As far as I know, only the original vertical integration and the EWPC paradigms are designed to satisfy such requirement. As you can see in the GMH article NERC Compliance and Power Sector Structure, NERC mandatory requirements are just a set of costly afterthoughts, which “will no fix the structural flaws remaining.”

Missing in the afterthoughts is that systemic risk of system failure requirement under vertical integration aimed to provide maximum social welfare by developing the power system infrastructure under least costs expansion plans. Under EWPC the transportation infrastructure is to be developed under similar least costs to enable maximum welfare in the open market. Coordination is brought about by EWPC market architecture and design paradigm. When customers take their decisions independently the results can be way off the social welfare optimal as lack of coordination will lead to a lot of value destruction.

As the work of FERC is correctly showing, demand response (and thus energy efficiency) investment and service plan procedures information is required beforehand to determine the price of electricity when demand gets integrated into power system planning, operation and control. EWPC dual markets design provide how customers will interact in supplying the needed information while selecting 2GRs’ service plans, which under competition will become business model innovations.

The transition from vertical integration to EWPC should proceed in a reasonable time frame in which supply side risk management gets reduced by increasing demand side risk management of system failure, as the customers’ education process continues.

The alternative is to go back to vertical integration to keep receiving a monthly bill and using costly generating reserves to manage systemic risk of system failure, which in turn lead to very costly electricity.


domingo, diciembre 16, 2007

¿Mi Regalo de Navidad?: Productividad con Cambio Paradigma Educativo

¿Mi Regalo de Navidad?: Productividad con Cambio Paradigma Educativo

Por José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Systemic Consultant

Los elementos esenciales de un cambio de paradigma educativo nacen del impacto de la 5ta revolución tecnológica que está transformando a todos los sectores. El sector educativo es uno de los que más serán impactos por los cambios tecnológicos, afectando grandemente la productividad de los distintos egresados y de los sectores productivos.

Siguiendo un ejemplo de la venta de sillas de madera, David McWilliam, MD at Cognos SA, escribe que de acuerdo a la consultora McKinsey existen tres formas primarias de trabajo y actividades de negocios:

  • Trabajo transformacional: extracción de materias primas y/o conversión a productos terminados (tomar madera y hacer una silla.)

  • Trabajo transaccional: interacciones que se desdoblan de forma basadas en reglas y que pueden ser escritas o automatizadas. (Tomar madera pre-cortada y construir sillas en una línea de ensamblaje.)

  • Trabajo tácito: interacciones más complicadas requiriendo un nivel superior de juicio y envolviendo ambigüedad y extrayendo conocimiento tácito o experimental. (Administrando las ventas de sillas para una región específica.)

Con un amplio progreso en las zonas francas y el turismo, los dominicanos hemos demostrados que podemos realizar el trabajo transaccional con alta productividad. El sistema educativo dominicano parece estar bien orientado a esa clase de trabajo.

Según McWilliam, de acuerdo a McKinsey el trabajo tácito ha aumentado en los últimos 9 años a más del 70% de los nuevos trabajos en los Estados Unidos, llegando al 40% del empleo total. No obstante, informa que hay un gran desfase porque se han invertido seis veces más en tecnología para trabajo transaccional que en trabajo tácito. Como el trabajo transaccional es fácil de duplicar, la ventaja competitiva depende cada vez más de la productividad del trabajo tácito.

Todo luce indicar que las quejas de los sectores productivos dominicanos pueden radicar en el desconocimiento de ese tipo de trabajo y de ese desfase. Si es así, ese es el regalo de Navidad que les ofrezco a aquellos que no lo habían entendido todavía. Lo que requieren es personal que sea capaz de realizar trabajo tácito, pero el sector educativo no esta preparado para suplirlo en las cantidades necesarias. Estamos en frente de un nuevo renacimiento, pero no solo para las elites.

Se necesita entonces transformar el sistema educativo dominicano vía un cambio de paradigma que permita suplir la demanda de empleados capaces de realizar trabajo tácito. Los educadores y los estudiantes deben entender que el trabajo transaccional es un trabajo que puede ser y es reemplazado por las máquinas y los sistemas de información.

En el nuevo renacimiento, la educación liberal necesita ser enfatizada más que nunca en el sistema educativo para poder realizar “interacciones más complicadas requiriendo un nivel superior de juicio y envolviendo ambigüedad y extrayendo conocimiento tácito o experimental.”

La escuela-fábrica de producción de trabajadores para el mercado masivo debe ser cuestionada y en su lugar dar paso a, por ejemplo, un nuevo modelo para el mercado de educación casi a la medida. La interacción de los sectores productivos con el sector educativo puede ayudar a facilitar el ambiente necesario aprovechando los sistemas de redes de información. Las aulas pueden entonces que se muevan de sitio para los niveles superiores.

En tal sentido, y con base a la nota Política de Educación para un Desarrollo Humano Inclusivo y Renovado, se podría pensar en grandes profesores que ni siquiera estén ubicados en el país y cooperando con excelentes asistentes ubicados en los sectores productivos o en escuelas especializadas y no en la escuela-fábrica. Es así como podría ser el nuevo paradigma educación superior.

Espero que estas ideas puedan ayudar a reorientar el debate en cuanto a la necesidad de desarrollar líderes a todos los niveles, pues son los líderes los que están preparados para realizar el trabajo tácito.



sábado, diciembre 15, 2007

Market Research Doesn’t Work Yet for Demand Integration

Demand integration is a discontinuous innovation and the reason why the responses of customers are way off with respect to the non-trivial concept of demand response. Politics should NOT continue to play major interventions in regard to betting on outcomes in alternative energy and demand response, as the installation of AMI is developed by 2GRs under competition. Great opportunities are waiting “that promises much more value creation over time” under the EWPC paradigm shift.

Market Research Doesn’t Work Yet for Demand Integration

By José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Systemic Consultant: Electricity

Copyright © 2007 José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without written permission from José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. This article is an unedited, an uncorrected, draft material of The EWPC Textbook. Please write to javs@ieee.org to contact the author for any kind of engagement.

In the article Demand Integration is NOT the Province of Politics it is very clear that there are non-trivial aspects of electricity and that there is a need for a paradigm shift of the power industry as a consequence of demand integration. The non-trivial aspects of vertical integration make possible to plan, operate and control by risk management on the supply side without demand integration. It is also clear from the article that according to FERC demand response, the basic element of demand integration also includes demand side energy efficiency.

It is important to see that the old whole power industry paradigm had two separate interdependent markets, the so called vertical integration controlled market up to the customers meters and the demand open market of customer devices beyond the meter that transform electricity into useful energy services (see below a quote of Jamie Wimberly, CEO, EcoAlign, on those services).

The EWPC paradigm restructuring discovery separates the same whole power industry in a different way into two interdependent markets, with also one open, and the other controlled. The controlled transportation utility market retains the non-trivial aspects of the vertical integration controlled market as demand response is executed to bridge the retail and wholesale open markets to produce ultraquality transportation. Those controlled markets are the machines that should be ran by engineers, no politicians, if we want to enable the maximum social welfare from electricity. For more details, please see the articles Free Market and Central Planning, Under R1E2 and Engineers Needed for Lower Prices.

The whole point is that under EWPC it is possible to plan, operate and control by a mix of supply side and demand side risk management to offer high service system (not customers) reliability even without storage. Those concepts are explained in the article An Alternative Business Case for Demand Response that I wrote as a rebuttal to The Business Case for Demand Response, which Jamie co-authored with Thomas Brunetto, Managing Director, Distributed Energy Financial Group. By the way, the analogy with gasoline doesn’t hold because electricity is produced and consumed at the same instant and demand response requires planning with customer supplied information.

Regarding another key view of the paradigm shift, in response to my comments to the article The Future Utility Customer Service Model, Jamie wrote “At my firm, the Distributed Energy Financial Group LLC, we believe the changing utility customer service model is simply one manifestation of a technological revolution akin to the industrial revolution that promises much more value creation over time.” That revolution is precisely fueling the paradigm shift of the power industry by enabling demand integration that “promises much more value creation over time.” Making bets on AMI investments should be avoided and left to competitive customer service model as the utility is restricted to transport the electricity.

Looking at the “green gap” from another angle, in that same article, Jamie wrote “And what do customers want? Most customers are not buying ‘alternative’ or ‘green,’ but are more interested in cheap, reliable energy sources. In fact, I would argue that they are not even buying energy per se, but rather comfort, convenience, light, entertainment, mobility, etc. Greater levels of efficiency allowing for greater levels of consumption of what people desire have the virtuous impact of being ‘cleaner and greener.’ One must be careful to not confuse cause and effect.”

So, educating customers without “greater levels of efficiency” will not necessarily support customers’ efforts and investments in new technology like those suggested by Bob Amorisi. In fact, differentiation in customers’ (not system) reliability is akin to comfort and convenience energy service differentiation that leads to affordable prices for a large segment of any population that can do without full ultraquality transportation.

Such paradigm shift is the reason why market research doesn’t work in this particular initial situation. When disruptive technologies (discontinuous innovations) occur people just don’t have a clue of what is going on. One of the examples given was somehow the very small number of computers that IBM forecasted initially by market research. Another example is that of Henry Ford famous quote “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

That explains why the responses of customers are way off with respect to the non-trivial concept of demand response and not so with the apparently familiar energy efficiency concept. What happens is that customers will discover the value of the technology later on fueling 2GRs business model innovations.

As for who should pay for AMI, under EWPC it is 2GRs that are responsible for their respective (Retailers’) Enterprise Solutions (see K2007 Retailers’ Enterprise Solutions). In addition, Nat Treadway, Managing Partner, Distributed Energy Financial Group, LLC, in the article The Dawn of Electricity Competition: Efficient Prices and Efficient Choices, whose theme is “regulated pricing inhibits efficiency,’ explains how to develop and implement a default service transition, which I suggest makes very easy to implement a complete AMI transformation by 2GRs.

The possibility of such an organized transition gets me back to the article To BE or NOT to BE Smart Metering. From the viewpoint of the individual customer, and not from the political regulator, the Ontario Electricity Coalition seems to understand that installing “smart meters in all homes in the province” is wrong. Since Bob wrote “As far as EWPC, I am very much in favour of less price regulation if it promotes free markets for consumers,” during the transition, customers will be able to freely choose whether or no to stay in default service. The most conservative, like the Ontario Electricity Coalition, will stay on default service waiting for the best deals under competition.

So the job of the politicians at this stage is to adopt very clear market structure and rules. EWPC is such a market architecture and design. As the controlled utility market guarantees ultraquality transportation, the open market becomes a true commodity market of electricity without price controls and under prudential regulations.

Reference and context: The Green Gap in Communications and Messaging, by Jamie Wimberly, CEO, EcoAlign and Andrea Fabbri, COO and Chief Marketing Officer, EcoAlign



jueves, diciembre 13, 2007

To BE or NOT to BE Smart Metering

The lack of a consistent market architecture and design paradigm shift creates a Babel Tower in Ontario. There is a need to consider the whole power industry and not isolated incremental shifts making like risky bets of installing “smart meters in all homes in the province.”

To BE or NOT to BE Smart Metering

By José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Systemic Consultant: Electricity

Copyright © 2007 José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without written permission from José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. This article is an unedited, an uncorrected, draft material of The EWPC Textbook. Please write to javs@ieee.org to contact the author for any kind of engagement.

One case in point about a green gap is in today’s Energy Central Daily news. Ontario should get smart, follow Hydro Quebec decision to abandon time-of-use meters, electricity coalition says. "The Ontario government would be doing consumers a favour if it were to follow the example of Hydro Quebec and abandon its plan to install so-called smart meters in all homes in the province, says the Ontario Electricity Coalition."

“… Hydro Quebec has decided that the expense of installing the meters would be borne by consumers through higher electricity rates…”

"Time-of-use meters are less about energy conservation and more about raising the cost of electricity to pay for private power generation,"

"There is little evidence that smart meters will reduce electricity consumption and plenty of evidence that prices will increase. The cost of installation alone in Ontario is more than $2 billion," he said. "There really is nothing smart about basing an energy plan on time-use-meters in Ontario homes… That money would be better spent on an effective energy conservation plan."

The lack of a consistent market architecture and design paradigm shift creates such a Babel Tower. There is a need to consider the whole power industry and not isolated incremental shifts like installing “smart meters in all homes in the province.”

Under EWPC, demand integration (as explained in the above post) is about both energy conservation and reducing the cost of electricity by developing demand elasticity with efficient pricing.

There is a great risk that the smart meters bet made by regulators and utilities will result in a price increase for customers. Those risks are better handled through the market by competitive 2GRs service plans that combine interdependent decisions on investments by customers. In addition, instead of installing meters in all homes, it is more efficient to do it during a transition period under competition.



jueves, diciembre 06, 2007

Demand Integration is NOT the Province of Politics.

Demand integration and system reliability are not the provinces of politics, but of engineering systems and competition. FERC’s demand response staff assessment begs the question of a properly restructured electricity market. The highly complex paradigm inherent on its market structure will become even more complex if FERC’s correct instructions are implemented. A paradigm shift to the EWPC market structure and design is expected to avoid getting the developed countries’ power industry into that of third world service.

Demand Integration is NOT the Province of Politics.

By José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Systemic Consultant: Electricity

Copyright © 2007 José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without written permission from José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. This article is an unedited, an uncorrected, draft material of The EWPC Textbook. Please write to javs@ieee.org to contact the author for any kind of engagement.

As described in the "2007 Assessment of Demand Response and Advanced Metering," the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued the incorporation of demand response to transmission planning; the revision of NERC mandatory requirements to incorporate demand response; and the proposal to add demand response enhancements to competition in wholesale markets. As can be seen below, those three correct instructions beg the need for properly restructured electricity markets.

Looking very carefully at the instructions, those signals highlight the increasing complexity of the open transmission access incremental extension of the vertically integrated utilities (VIUs) paradigm. It is now very clear that those begging signals justify the need for the paradigm shift to the electricity without price controls (EWPC) paradigm in order to follow the design mantra “simplify, simplify, simplify.”

EWPC is the only properly restructured electricity markets available, where complexity is reduced by the discovery of two simplified interdependent markets: one is the controlled transportation (T&D) utility market and the other is the open commercial market. See Free Market and Central Planning, Under R1E2 (please hit link here and further down to get more details).

Second Generation Retailers Required

While utilities and third parties have the responsibility to integrate retail demand to wholesale markets, under EWPC the institution of Second Generation Retailer - 2GR is the sole responsible, like it used to be under the original VIUs paradigm. So instead of customers facing two institutions they will be able to have the whole relationship with the customers. As competition between utilities and third parties depends on the political process, on a state by state basis, innovation and progress is being delayed.

In addition, to further justify EWPC, in FERC’s assessment demand response is being extended to include energy efficiency. A simple explanation is that the latter can be understood as a long run demand response. This insight is very important because it recognizes that customers’ investments in short run demand response are interdependent with investments in long run demand response.

Interdependency is one key element to justify the need for retail competition and thus retailers. See The Sixth Disruptive Technology for more details on the other interdependent investments to be made by customers and retailers. It is now clear that 2GRs will tightly integrate the other five disruptive technologies with their business model innovations.

System Reliability is Non-Trivial and Not the Province of Politics

The vertically integrated utilities (VIUs) true and non-trivial paradigm led to a highly reliable electric service for many jurisdictions that understood and applied the paradigm. At many other locations that didn’t understand the non-trivial paradigm, usually known as third world electric service, unreliable service was offered. The knowledge accumulated behind of the true and non-trivial VIUs controlled market paradigm (for example by PJM) was based on the development of the theory and practice of physical risk management for an industry without energy storage that considered reliability and demand as externalities.

The result is a highly developed long run and short run supply side physical system risk management body of knowledge to offer commercial reliable service even without electricity storage, which is known under the terms system adequacy, supply security constrained economic dispatch, contingency analysis, loss of load probability studies, etc.

As the electric industry has develop its own risk management methodologies, which are true and non-trivial, it seems much more complex for other intelligent and important people, just as “Paul Samuelson said that a doctrine is non-trivial when ‘it is attested by thousands of important and intelligent men who have never been able to grasp the doctrine for themselves or to believe it after it was explained to them.’ The EWPC doctrine is logically true, coherent and non-trivial. Reform should be based on knowledge and facts, not only on the political processes. See EWPC is a True and Non-Trivial Doctrine.

Today the responsibility for system reliability is divided into federal and state regulators, NERC, and RTO/ISO under a political process. However, under EWPC it is just the transportation institution that is responsible, like it used to be under the original VIUs paradigm. That institution is the controlled transportation (transmission and distribution) utility market, being responsible for transportation ultraquality. By doing so, those institutions are way into the true and non-trivial aspects of electric power systems, which are not the province of politics, but of engineering systems.

Transportation Ultraquality is the Province of Engineers Not Politics

The ultraquality imperative, was explained as follows in EWPC: People Coordinating and Cooperating with Electrons Part 2:

Eberhart Rechtin and Mark Maier, in their book “The Art of System Architecting,” explain that “social system quality… is less a foundation than a case-by-case trade-off; that is, the quality desired depends on the system to be provided. In nuclear power generation, modern manufacturing, and manned space flight, ultraquality is an imperative. But in public health, pollution control, and safety, the level of acceptable quality is only one of many economic, social, political, and technical factors to be accommodated.”

In the first case, the experts are the engineers. For the center stage, controlled market, system engineer institution to assures that electrons and people have the same purpose, as I mentioned on 12.30.06, ultraquality is an imperative to manage short run and long run systemic risk, with both supply side and demand side resources.

In the second case, according to Rechtin and Maier, the accommodation is done by the architect with “a professional response to the public needs and perceptions.” It is such unjustified perceptions that fueled the decade long debate. Bill Hogan mistake was that he didn’t understand what Fred Schweppe meant by the fourth criterion: “consider the engineering requirements for controlling, operating and planning an electric power system,” which can only be met by ultraquality. As time has advanced and new digital technology market share becomes larger, electricity demand for quality is only increasing. A professional response is needed, however, for the remaining, non real-time, free market activities of retail and generation. EWPC for the customers is such a response.

Demand Integration is the Province of Competition Not Politics

FERC’s assessment states “In November of 2006, the Commission and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners began a demand response collaborative effort, co-chaired by Commissioner Jon Wellinghoff, to coordinate the efforts of the state and federal electric regulators to integrate demand response into retail and wholesale markets and planning." Demand response integration by 2GRs under competition and open transportation access make both retail and wholesale competition a lot simpler.

Such political collaborative to integrate demand is apparently needed because of the present system structure. The “Increased activity by third parties to aggregate retail demand response,” reported by FERC, identifies an activity that should be performed by the 2GR customer facing institution. Under EWPC the integration of demand response to wholesale market is to be performed by 2GRs.

Reference and context: FERC Assesses Advanced Metering Programs by Bill Opalka, Editor-in-Chief, Topic Centers, Energy Central