WHITE PLAINS – Westchester County has received over $361,500 from NuEnergen, LLC. for the county’s enrollment in three summer demand response programs – bringing the total money earned by the county through this program to $1.5 million.
The county works with NuEnergen to provide it with a demand response program that both earn the county income as well as provide an opportunity to further enhance its sustainability efforts.
Demand response is an electricity grid and utility-run series of programs that offer financial incentives to owners of facilities, in this case, the county, that reduce the need for kilowatts during times of high stress on the region’s electric grid. It also eliminates or minimizes the need to build expensive infrastructure or fire up dormant fossil fuel burning “peaker plants.”
In the program, Westchester remains on ‘stand-by’ to lower energy usage during times of great stress – like days with sweltering heat. On those “high-stress” days, the county is alerted of a “demand response” event beginning and reduces energy usage at some of its facilities like powering down a building and taking them off the electric grid.
A few short hours later, the event would end, and normal operations would resume. The more kW load – or the number of buildings – that are enrolled in the program, the higher the is the earning for the county.
Similar programs have already proved to be successful with the City of New York, the NY/NJ Port Authority, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
