Residential TOU Price Response in the Presence of Interactive Communication Equipment

This paper examined customer price responsiveness to an innovative residential TOU program in which customers face high critical prices during periods of high wholesale power costs, and have the ability to use an interactive communication device to pre-schedule certain major energy-using devices. Customers facing this rate shifted substantial load from both peak and shoulder periods to lower priced off-peak periods. Customer price response under this innovative program exceeded by a substantial margin the response found in previous TOU programs.