Voltus First to Deliver Demand Response to Southwest Power Pool

EST Voltus, Inc., the leading provider of demand response to the commercial and industrial market, announced today that it is the first aggregator of retail customers to enter the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), a market covering 17 states that has more than 5,000 MWs of demand response potential.

"Our commercial and industrial demand response customers have thousands of sites in the SPP footprint that are eager to deliver the most cost-effective, most reliable, and cleanest capacity, energy, and ancillary services power to meet peak demand and grid stress," said Gregg Dixon, CEO of Voltus. "Combined with declining operating reserve margins, increasing costs, and a need to meet FERC mandates for integration of distributed energy resources, we're excited to bring innovative resources to the SPP market while delivering economic benefits to customers in its region."

SPP has a peak demand of 50,662 MWs across 17 states, including Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. Each of these states has experience with various forms of utility and third-party-delivered demand response but has yet to benefit from third-party aggregation in the SPP portion of each state until now.

"We've watched closely as Voltus has worked to open other markets to third-party demand response, and we respect their leadership in the industry," said Carl Monroe, Chief Operating Officer for the Southwest Power Pool, based in Little Rock, Arkansas. "We're eager to see how Voltus's technology and services will unlock not only the value of various types of demand response but all types of distributed energy resources in the SPP footprint."

"Commercial and industrial customers now have another big demand response program to participate in for 2020, just in time to deliver against energy and operational budget goals," said Dana Guernsey, Vice President of Product and Markets for Voltus. "Our national account customers typically want all of their sites to participate in every available demand response program, so they're especially excited about Voltus opening up another entirely new region like SPP."