More and more policymakers are developing policies to influence the amount, time, or place of net electricity demand in order to reduce emissions. From Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), to energy storage, to load shifting policies (like real-time pricing or flexible appliance standards), to low carbon fuel standards, these policies all have effects on emissions. But how to know what effect, and design for success? 

 

Typically, policymakers must rely on ‘proxy’ metrics such as locational marginal price, peak demand, static time periods, or battery efficiency to attempt to measure and track emissions reductions.  And researchers have repeatedly found that aligning programs metrics to proxies for environmental impact has led to programs that are less successful than expected in reducing emissions--sometimes even backfiring and unintentionally increasing them. 

 

So, WattTime supports policymakers working on such policies with tools to directly measure and optimize for their intended consequence: emissions reduction. For programs that relate specifically to changing net load in order to achieve environmental goals, replacing proxies and directly measuring marginal or total emissions effects can often dramatically increase efficacy, reduce costs on taxpayers and regulated entities alike, and avoid unintended consequences.