Adopting Time Sensitive Operations Plans to Avoid Peak Period Electricity Consumption

Although the premise of addressing Late Peak Demand customers have is that their demand is relatively inelastic, there is generally some wiggle room, and, in some cases, some material discretion in time of use of high demand equipment.

Recently, I’ve become very interested in EV Vehicle Charging Infrastructure. There is no question that the EV Market is growing-both for personal and business use. In California, truck manufacturers will be required to transition to electric zero emission trucks starting in 2024 and 50% of truck sales go electric by 2035.

Governor Newsom recently passed an Executive Order that directs the state to require that, by 2035 all new cars and passenger trucks sold in California be zero emission vehicles. That will require a LOT of EV charging infrastructure. Charging also requires a significant amount of high demand use.

Level 1 and Level 2 charging stations use alternating current (AC) at power capacities of less than 15 kilowatts (kW). In contrast, a single Direct Current Fast Charger plug runs at a minimum of 50 kW. Fast chargers that can run at 150kW are becoming more widespread and systems up to 350 kW are under development. A DCFC station with more than one plug can easily hit 350 kW or even 1 megawatt (MW) of electric demand if multiple vehicles are charging at once.

We know that high demand power used in a peak period, especially in a peak season can be very expensive, consequently, it is important to be strategic about when you power your electric vehicle fleets. Thankfully, there are many solutions programs and solutions program that offer smart energy management, which includes a charging-as-a-service model for management and maintenance of vehicle batteries and charging systems, as well as tools for energy optimization.

This provides customers with an unprecedented opportunity for smart energy management and full-lifecycle management of energy storage assets. Many systems also offer charge management features such as scheduled charging, monitoring and control of charging stations, to manage power demand and reduce electricity costs.

For Wastewater Treatment Plants, Thickened sludge pumps, Thickened Waste activation pumps (or TWAS pumps) and digested sludge pumps — Digested and thickened sludge applications are very common in wastewater plants that use either anaerobic or aerobic digestion. They also are high demand users of electricity.

Changes to operating schedules and expansion to process specific capacity can create the opportunity to run these pumps during non-peak periods, thus lessening high demand electricity costs.