Participation - 5 Points to Consider
When Selecting a Demand Response Provider to Partner With

Does the Demand Response provider:

1. Have a local presence with a team of available Energy Management Specialists and Customer Service Associates to facilitate program participation and provide staff training?

The Ontario energy sector is a regulatory and bureaucratic maze that is among the most challenging of any jurisdiction in North America. Energy users, generators, distributors and service providers face an alphabet soup of agencies with varying, and sometimes conflicting, mandates:

• Ontario Power Authority (OPA)
• Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO)
• Ontario Energy Board (OEB)
• Ontario Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure (MOEI)

Demand Response in Ontario has been driven by two of these entities: OPA and IESO. The OPA’s current DR3 program is getting the most attention right now, but there is still extensive involvement from the IESO in evaluating contributors and dispatching the loads.

Rodan has worked extensively with the OPA and the IESO and has deep insight into their operational and administrative characteristics. We are under contract to OPA as the exclusive Demand Response Aggregator in the Northern York Region and represent over 35 Local Distribution Companies (LDC) as the load control operator for the OPA’s Residential and Small Commercial peaksaver® Program. We are a licensed IESO meter service provider and have developed an intimate understanding of how to meet this organization’s exacting requirements.



2. Have a local Network Operations Centre to manage DR events that is backed up by a secure and fully redundant offsite server?

Information management is the heart of any Energy Management or Demand Response program. To satisfy the program terms for DR3, aggregators must have an energy information platform to satisfy the needs of the OPA and IESO for performance validation as well as providing timely feedback to both the aggregator and contributor on Demand Response performance.

Rodan has built a state of the art Network Operations Center at our Mississauga facility. This robust installation runs multiple data management and dispatching platforms to provide load and data management for the OPA and IESO for DR3, York DR, peaksaver® and custom DR programs that Rodan has developed for several LDC’s.



3. Provide an Energy Management software platform that provides real-time energy consumption, performance and settlement data?

All Enershift participants are provided with a login to the EnerVu software service. This web-based application allows the user to view their energy consumption on a near real-time basis. Users can use EnerVu to monitor their curtailment, as well as for day-to-day monitoring and energy awareness.



4. Have proven experience in implementing and managing demand response programs including in house expertise in measurement and verification?

The OPA’s DR3 program has established strict monitoring and verification criteria for meter data resolution and quality. Essentially, the meter data quality must match that required by the IESO for power generators and the largest industrial market participants. Most of the contributors who will participate in DR3 are ‘retail’ customers connected to LDC systems and will not have meters capable of meeting this specification. This dilemma is further exacerbated by the large number of LDC’s in the province and the wide range of meter specifications and configurations that may exist from one jurisdiction to the next.

Rodan’s experience in both IESO and retail metering technology and telemetry makes us ideally suited to bridge this gap. Our Energy Managers and Metering Technologists can quickly develop and implement cost effective solutions to ensure contributors are compliant with the monitoring and verification protocols required under DR3.

As Ontario’s largest independent meter service provider, we have worked with virtually every Local Distribution Company in the province and know most Executives and Metering Department Managers on a first name basis. In some cases, we have worked on behalf of LDC’s to install, upgrade and maintain meters at these same contributor locations.



5. Demonstrate a long term commitment to Demand Response as a business focus?

Some US­ based aggregators are entering the Ontario market exclusively through marketing channels with local companies. Other firms (US and Canadian) are adding Demand Response to an already large portfolio of energy supply and services offerings as an ‘add­on’ or ‘line extension’. Often, the result is that local representatives have a limited understanding of Demand Response and cannot respond to deeper customer inquiries about the programs day­-to-­day details. Expert resources are either very limited locally or only exist outside the province.

Rodan is based in Ontario and has fully trained Regional Directors across the province who work directly with contributors and can answer ALL questions about the programs. Our staff includes highly qualified Certified Energy Managers (CEM) and Certified Monitoring and Verification Professionals (CMVP) dedicated to Demand Response.