Peak-Time Rebates (PTR)

Lower Wholesale Costs, Lower Bills, and Engage Your Consumers!  PTR programs notify consumers of specific upcoming hours when wholesale costs are likely to be extremely high (peak times).  Consumers can then voluntarily decide if and how to act to reduce their usage during those upcoming hours.  Bill credits or rebate checks are issued based on the amount of that reduction. It typically requires very low upfront investment by the utility with low stranded cost risk if the power supply situation changes.

PTR programs are not only great at reducing wholesale power costs and lowering electricity bills.  They also have the advantage of engaging consumers and educating them about how your utility incurs a substantial amount of its costs.  This engagement keeps the consumer in control without exposing them to a risk of a higher bill.  It’s the “carrot” approach versus the “stick”.  For this reason, we typically see well over 20% of residential consumers voluntarily sign-up and participate in a PTR program.

Clearspring Energy Advisors can help you evaluate the business case for a PTR program in the context of your existing load management portfolio. If you do want to move forward, we can provide advice and assistance on all aspects of running a PTR program from recruitment to event dispatching to rebate calculations.

New Research Paper: Using real-world AMI hourly data from 1,000 households, Clearspring Energy investigated the accuracy of different Peak Time Rebate (PTR) baseline methodologies. These baseline calculations are being employed around the country to determine rebate payments to participants. Our research is discussed and documented in a new paper found here.