Demand Response 2

Time to Explore New Load Shifting Opportunities

DR2 is an attractive incentive program created to help the industrial sector in Ontario find ways of using less electricity when the province’s power supply is short or when it's at its most expensive. In addition to offering Ontario industries more ways to manage their energy use, DR2 also plays a role in achieving the province’s conservation targets. A load shift program with contractual obligations, DR2 is expected to contribute significantly to peak load reduction that the province can count on during peak periods.

For Whom Is DR2 Intended?

A strong addition to the OPA's suite of demand response programs, this initiative targets Ontario's large industrial or manufacturing businesses – electricity users who are in a position to commit to consistently shifting production, and electricity use, away from the peak periods (business days between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.) into the low cost energy periods, or to move energy intensive parts of their production to low cost energy periods, thus stockpiling this production for further refining during high cost energy periods.

More specifically, which processes could benefit from participating in the DR2 program?

• Municipal water pumping and treatment
• Ice storage
• Plastics grinding
• Rock or gravel crushing operations
• Wood pulp production
• Mine de-watering

Tell Me More

Program participants can contract to reduce a pre-determined amount of load for a minimum period of 4 consecutive hours, up to a maximum of 12 consecutive hours during the peak period. The load would then increase during the off-peak period. Load shifting does need to occur every business day and businesses need to be ready to participate for either eight or 12 months of the year. The contracts can be signed for one, three, or five-year periods.

A payment is made for availability (capacity) and a guaranteed price spread between peak and off-peak hourly Ontario energy price (HOEP) is offered for load shifting (energy). It’s important to note that failure to comply with the contractual requirements could result in offsets against potential revenue gain from the program.

The DR2 Program can be contracted directly by businesses with a minimum of 5MW of demand response capacity or through a company that aggregates demand response capacity for any load larger than .1MW.

Next Steps?

Interested in learning how your organization could benefit from participating in the DR2 Program? Or, would you like to know how to apply for participation in DR2? In either case, we’re here to help. Please provide your full contact information here, and one of our Energy Managers will be glad to follow up with the details.