PWR uses innovative market-based technology to coordinate electricity consumption by smart devices in homes and small businesses. This approach puts participants in control while supporting Memphis’ electric grid.
A cloud-based coordination system where smart devices bid to consume or provide electricity, enabling flexible energy use without changing how participants pay their utilities.
PWR's technology uses market mechanisms to coordinate consumption of electricity by large and smart electric loads in residential and small commercial buildings, such as heat pumps, water heaters, and storage batteries. Market mechanisms enable PWR to coordinate consumption based on the preferences of participants, not utilities.
PWR's technology brings the sophisticated algorithms that coordinate the wholesale market to individual energy loads. This approach enables appliances to respond, automatically, to grid needs based on energy consumer preferences. In contrast to traditional demand response programs, where utilities manage appliances directly, PWR accommodates a range of energy consumer preferences. On a recurring interval, each participating responsive energy device automatically submits an order to a "market" hosted in the cloud to either provide or consume electricity. These orders are based on the device's state, such as how much energy is stored in a battery, the participant's preferences, and grid conditions. The market then allocates production and consumption of electricity among the participating devices based on received orders and grid conditions. PWR does not change how participants pay for their electricity. Participants will pay their utility as if they were not participating in PWR. The PWR "market" is merely a coordination mechanism. PWR will evaluate a variety of market mechanisms, such as a double auction, to determine the most effective approach.
PWR builds on earlier work on Transactive Energy at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Stanford University and prior studies on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State and in Ohio. PWR is extending that work by assessing viability at commercial scale, from financial, policy, and participant perspectives.