Dive Brief:
- Summer and winter peak demand growth rates have fallen to their lowest levels, not even 1% annually, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), which noted the shift in its Long Term Reliability Assessment released in December.
- NERC said its 10-year forecast compounded annual growth rate of peak summer and winter electricity demand has trended downward and now sits at "the lowest rates on record" – 0.99% and 0.92% for summer and winter, respectively.
- As efficiency benefits continue to grow, along with distributed generation, NERC predicted the declining growth rates "are expected to continue."
Dive Insight:
It's not the most exciting topic, energy efficiency, but efforts in the last 10 years to improve the operations of appliances have had a rapid and marked impact. Annual peak growth rates have fallen consistently in the last decade and a half, down from almost 2.2% in the 90s, according to NERC's report.
"As energy efficiency and conservation programs increase, the declining demand growth rates are expected to continue," NERC wrote. "This is also true with continued growth in distributed photovoltaic solar and other behind-the-meter resources."
NERC, the agency tasked with ensuring reliability, added that despite the low load growth and declining reserve margins, none of the four assessment areas fall below required levels through 2021. And the non-profit said it re-examined areas that projected shortfalls in the 2014 report (NPCC-New York, TRE-ERCOT, and MISO), "by monitoring the net additions of on-peak availability of resources and changes to accounting methods and load modifiers."
Congress has set minimum energy conservation standards for consumer products and commercial and industrial equipment since 1975, beginning with the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. A body known as the Appliance Standards and Rulemaking Federal Advisory Committee is currently working to reduce carbon emissions by at least 3 billion metric tons cumulatively by 2030.
Among NERC's recommendations, the group called for establishing a task force focused on accommodating distributed energy resources to further examine future reliability impacts.
"NERC should leverage industry stakeholder expertise and create a task force to examine and proactively address potential [bulk power system] reliability impacts associated with the integration of large amounts of distributed resources, including variable energy resources connected to the distribution system," the report concluded. "The task force should also consider and evaluate the opportunities that may be provided by DERs that can enhance reliability and resiliency."