If you were asked to cut back some of your business’ highest energy consumption or power up a certain new generation within 30 minutes, could you manage it?
Ancillary services are basically support services that sustain the quality, security and reliability of the power supply.
In the United States, markets are managed by regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and the independent system operators (ISOs) which usually trade four products:
- Regulation- Controls electric frequency within the system transmission
- Supplemental Reserves- Load which can be provided within 30 minutes
- Spinning (Synchronous (Sync) Reserves- Created from companies that can provide electrical load within 10 minutes
- Non-spinning Reserves-Refers to the electrical load that can be bumped up to become Sync within 10 minutes
In assumption, the faster and greater the load delivered, the greater your incentive. And of course, that would be right. If you can manage it, ancillary services are a great way to augment your revenue flow from demand response capacity.