Demand response (DR) support service

Demand response (DR) support service “BridgeLAB DR”

Our BridgeLAB DR provides a one-stop solution that provides three elements necessary for running a demand response (DR) operation: (1) DR activation notification and managing participants, (2) energy saving and its incentive calculation, and (3) effectiveness reporting. Since it is a cloud-based service, electricity retailers can easily start DR without major system set-up investments.
In addition to avoiding imbalances through power saving (suppress demand request) and improving profits when electricity purchase prices soar, we also encourage consumption when there is surplus power (increase demand request), reduce capacity market contributions payout, and comply with the amended act on the Rational Use of Energy etc. We will contribute to your business improvement and profitability.

Reasons for launching DR Operation

When DR was initially introduced, the objectives were to request the general public to save electricity when the supply was tight, to improve profits by reducing usage when electricity market prices were rising, and to return incentives from the central or local governments to consumers. Additionally in order to deal with the increased economic burden and the necessity to cope with the tightening legislation, there is a increasing need to proactively engage in DR operation. For example, the capacity market contributions payout scheme was introduced in order to support the investment costs for building power generation facilities, and its amount per retailers is determined based on the power supply performance during peak periods in summer and winter. Hence by implementing DR operation, we can expect significant economic effects by reducing peaks throughout the distribution system and reducing capital investment itself, as well as reducing the capacity market contribution payouts. Additionally, the amended act on the Rational Use of Energy requires retailers to “report electricity usage by month (in units of 1 month) or by time of day (in units of 30 minutes or 60 minutes)” and “report the number of days in which DR was implemented”. A streamlined operation will be required, where “BridgeLab DR” can help you.

Benefits of introducing BridgeLab DR

DR attracted social attention in the wake of the power crunch in 2021. In most cases, electricity retailers sent a one-way request to their customers to save electricity, and then provide incentives (award points or apply discounts) without fully confirming whether the customer had actually taken any energy-saving action. This short-sighted operation revealed that there were many incentives paid out to unnecessary cases, the inability to identify customers who did cooperate , the inability to predict the saving in the future cases, the inability to narrow down the scope of the request, and the huge operational burden of manually coping with a new operation. “BrdigeLAB DR” reduces the operational burden on retailers who have introduced DR, by providing a one-stop solution for all tasks necessary to run DR, from notifying customers to counting participants, calculating savings, and reporting results.