June 10, 2008 Businesses paid to curb energy use Play video

(Peter Howe, NECN) - As you might expect the heat is taking its toll on the region's power supply. But some companies are doing their part to help.

The fourth day of an extraordinary June heat wave

Air conditioners blasting. Refrigerators and freezers running full tilt

And power plants across New England groaning to meet electric demand

But there's a new tool in the region's energy toolbox. Something called demand response ... Businesses getting paid to use less power on days like this.

From its war room in Boston, a company called Enernoc directs hundreds of businesses called to trim their electric use.

We actually have customers in our demand response network that are curtailing their use of electricity today because they are getting paid to help keep prices low on the electricity grid overall.

One customer is stop and shop. Four hundred and fifteen supermarkets can turn off some lights if electric demand soars.

Another, the harpoon brewery. We can shut equipment down bottling, variety of heating ventilation air conditioning lights computers .

Nothing that threatens the precious beer. But it helps the bottom line.

It's not big money but with today's energy prices going up so much every little bit helps

An Enernoc customer could get a 2 to 4 percent rebate of their annual energy bill by agreeing to curb power use on high-demand days.

Tim Healy “In a lot of cases it's undetectable electricity

The big picture here is the bizarre wholesale electric market A megawatt hour of power that's 50 or 60 bucks most of the year can suddenly jump to one thousand dollars on the hottest afternoons of summer.

How can the wholesale price of electricity jump by 10 or 15 times? Well on a hot day if popsicles or iced coffee get too expensive, people just stop consuming them. But on a hot day when the grid has to turn to expensive emergency power supplies, they have to pay top dollar -- or else the lights go out.

Massachusetts' energy czar sees a very bright future for demand response.

NECN’s Peter Howe reports.