Intelligent Demand Control
What is “demand control”?
Demand control, also called demand management, is the process of understanding where, when and why energy demand spikes occur and taking ongoing, automatic measures to reduce them or shift them with minimal impact on facility operations.
Why is demand control important to you?
Demand control, when properly utilized, can achieve major energy savings without impacting facility operations. Utility companies refer to the energy demand spikes in a facility as “peak demand”. The utilities make a significant investment in infrastructure (transformers, wires, etc…) in order to make available to you this level of peak demand whether you are using it all the time or not. In order to recover their costs, utilities add a demand charge to your utility bill relative to your highest peak demand level.
In some cases (more & more) this demand charge can be a significant portion of the overall electrical bill. Demand control is implemented to lower the charge associated with peak demand. Unfortunately, properly implementing demand control is very difficult due to the random coincidental run cycle of equipment within a facility. In other words, the peak demand level can occur at any random time as the site’s collection of electrical loads cycle on/off in their normal pattern of operation and coincide as a function of pure chance.
 How can Powerit Solutions use Intelligent Demand Control to achieve energy bill savings?
Powerit Solutions’ energy management systems create energy bill savings using a technique called “predictive demand control”. Predictive demand control is the process of identifying when critically high peak demand levels will occur and taking swift and efficient action to manage loads to reduce the size of the energy demand spike.
Powerit Solutions implements predictive demand control in a way that does not compromise load functionality or impact productivity, building comfort, or product quality. This performance-protecting feature is called Embedded Operator Intelligence™. Information about how loads are selected for shedding, the timing, the method of control and other load control details is gathered from facility operators and “embedded” into the control system to ensure primary system performance is protected. The systems are even customized from a look and feel for the specific applications.
For example, a food processing plant will see screen items and terminology specific to their needs and concerns.
Reducing peak demand in this way is an extremely achievable energy bill savings opportunity for industrial and commercial end users, whether you are looking for your first successful energy savings project or you feel you’ve tried everything else.
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