2010 Load Impact Evaluation of San Diego Gas & Electric Company's Summer Saver Program

SmartAC is an AC load control program run by san Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E). The program is targeted towards residential and small to medium business (SMB) customers. Participating customers allow SDG&E to install devices that can control the operation of their AC at times of high system demand. These periods are referred to as events.

Estimates of event impact were developed using regression modeling on AC usage data collected from samples of residential and SMB customers during the summer of 2010. Average residential impacts during the 11 events of 2010 were 0.13 kW per AC ton. Average SMB impacts were 0.09 kW/ton. SMB impacts were smaller than residential impacts due to more moderate AC control strategies used on SMB customers. Communication failures were estimated based on AC loads during events for residential customers controlled with 100% cycling.

Communication failure is estimated to affect about 13% of customers per event, but is more common among higher-use customers. In the immediate future the program is estimated to be able to produce a demand impact of approximately 17 MW on a typical event day.

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