Hello and Get Ready for Winter!!! We are already into the Winter season with an overnight low forecast of 26F. We had a RED (Stop) Power Alert this morning Wednesday 11/30 and will have another Thursday 12/1. The main reason for these Power Alerts is to reduce our total Electric System demand. We chose to take this action on the last day of November and the first day of December for very particular reasons. This brief cold snap may very well be the day when we set our system peak demand.
TVA charges us a system demand charge so every kilowatt we can reduce at the exact peak hour we set our monthly demand will save us a great deal of money. On a typical month, SEPB purchases about $2M worth of power from TVA. The system demand charge makes up about 25% or about $500,000 of our TVA wholesale power bill. So, every kilowatt (kw) of demand we can move or reduce during the peak hour will save SEPB and our customers a great deal of money. These alerts are working and we estimate that we have saved about $100k this summer so far. We also know that the Winter months pose the greatest risk of rising demand costs due to unpredictable cold fronts that can drop the temperature sometimes up to 60 degrees in just a few hours.
You can learn all about our Power Alert System by clicking on the following link:
http://www.sepb.net/index.php/power/poweralert
We are not just asking our residential customers to reduce and conserve to lower our peak. We are enrolling industrial customers into TVA's EnerNOC program wherein they are paid to agree to reduce a small amount of load when TVA calls a reduction. Several industries along with the Scottsboro Water, Sewer, and Gas Board (SWSG) are in the process of getting hooked into the EnerNOC system. As the program goes forward, we will expand to as many large commercial and industrial customers that want to participate.
Additionally, SEPB and SWSG are taking steps to reduce electric load during these Power System Alerts. We are running generators at our office and warehouse to reduce about 120 kw. SWSG has agreed to move their water and sewage treatment power usage in these winter months away from the 6:00-8:00 AM time period. This is a good example of the great working relationship we have with Mr. Roy Light and our friends at SWSG.
Please participate in all the Power Alerts we issue this winter. We try to keep these to a minimum and we hope to get better at predicting the exact hour we set our peak demand each month. It is, however, a little easier to predict a peak during extreme weather conditions.
TVA charges us a system demand charge so every kilowatt we can reduce at the exact peak hour we set our monthly demand will save us a great deal of money. On a typical month, SEPB purchases about $2M worth of power from TVA. The system demand charge makes up about 25% or about $500,000 of our TVA wholesale power bill. So, every kilowatt (kw) of demand we can move or reduce during the peak hour will save SEPB and our customers a great deal of money. These alerts are working and we estimate that we have saved about $100k this summer so far. We also know that the Winter months pose the greatest risk of rising demand costs due to unpredictable cold fronts that can drop the temperature sometimes up to 60 degrees in just a few hours.
You can learn all about our Power Alert System by clicking on the following link:
http://www.sepb.net/index.php/power/poweralert
We are not just asking our residential customers to reduce and conserve to lower our peak. We are enrolling industrial customers into TVA's EnerNOC program wherein they are paid to agree to reduce a small amount of load when TVA calls a reduction. Several industries along with the Scottsboro Water, Sewer, and Gas Board (SWSG) are in the process of getting hooked into the EnerNOC system. As the program goes forward, we will expand to as many large commercial and industrial customers that want to participate.
Additionally, SEPB and SWSG are taking steps to reduce electric load during these Power System Alerts. We are running generators at our office and warehouse to reduce about 120 kw. SWSG has agreed to move their water and sewage treatment power usage in these winter months away from the 6:00-8:00 AM time period. This is a good example of the great working relationship we have with Mr. Roy Light and our friends at SWSG.
Please participate in all the Power Alerts we issue this winter. We try to keep these to a minimum and we hope to get better at predicting the exact hour we set our peak demand each month. It is, however, a little easier to predict a peak during extreme weather conditions.
