PLMA Announces 2007 Demand Response Awards Winners

HOUSTON--(Business Wire)--
The Peak Load Management Alliance (PLMA) today announced the
winners of their 2007 Demand Response Annual Awards. The presentations
of the Awards were made at the PLMA Annual Awards Luncheon during the
PLMA Spring Conference, "Demand Response: As Used by Resource
Planners, ISO's, Regulators and Customers," in Baltimore, Maryland,
April 30-May 1, 2008.

Blackouts, shortages, fossil fuel price spikes and more have been
big news in the past few years. PLMA was formed as an alliance of
organizations of suppliers of electricity, load shedding systems
manufacturers, consultants, research groups and trade associations to
promote the concepts and technologies of reducing demand for
electricity, in response to pricing signals in the marketplace.

"There are a lot of innovative and creative load reduction
programs and studies being operated this year," remarked Elliot
Boardman, Executive Director of PLMA. "These awards are a way for PLMA
to recognize and highlight the best programs."

The Award Winners are identified below, followed by a description
of their Demand Response (DR) efforts and why they were chosen for the
award.

Outstanding Achievement by a Commercial End-User Award - Marriott
Corporation

The Marriott Corporation has received this award for their
participation in a variety of demand response programs throughout the
country. Marriott has once again proven it strong corporate commitment
to energy conservation and the various local communities in which they
operate by their participation in three important demand response
programs:

-- ISO-New England Real-Time Demand Response Program

-- Southern California Edison Negawatt Network Program

-- San Diego Gas & Electric Capacity Bidding Program

In all three cases, Marriott participates through a partnership
with demand response aggregator EnerNoc. With a total of seven hotels
enrolled in the two California DR programs, Marriott was able to
provide 2,400 kW of peak capacity during times when the electric grid
was under strain due to intense heat waves. During events, Marriott
utilizes its on-site generators, dims zone lighting and adjusts HVAC
set points as necessary. In addition, Marriott employees manually shut
down parking structure lighting, guest room door lights, and kitchen
and guest ice machines for the duration of the event.

Marriott expects to expand its DR program participation around the
country to over 100 hotel properties across 10 states and six DR
programs. Marriott's leadership and dedication have proven false the
common perception that hotels are too small and diverse in load
characteristics to effectively participate in demand response
programs. Taken in the aggregate, hotels can and will continue to make
a significant contribution to grid reliability. Marriott deserves
special recognition for including DR as part of their overall
corporate mission to reduce overall energy consumption and carbon
dioxide emissions.

Outstanding Achievement by an Institutional End-User Award - New
York University Hospitals Center

The New York University Hospitals Center has received an award for
their participation in the New York ISO and Consolidated Edison DR
programs. NYU Hospitals Center started participating in the NYISO's DR
program through ConsumerPowerline in 2006. In 2007, NYU Hospitals
Center added the ConEd DLRP Program to their DR program portfolio. The
ConEd program calls for load reductions during periods when specific
sub-zones in ConEd's service territory are under constraint. Since
that time, they have brought on 11 buildings across the campus for a
total of nearly 3 million square feet with nearly 2 MW of demand
response capability. During DR events, NYU Hospitals Center operates
its emergency generators which deliver the committed load for either
program without any impact on the comfort of the occupants. Future
plans call for increasing its shed capability to over 5 MW through
reductions in air handler speeds, resetting the chilled water
routines, switching from electricity to steam, and installing energy
management control systems on its new chiller plant. Funds are being
provided through the NYSERDA Peak Load Reduction Program to enable
many of these measures to be installed and validated.

NYU Hospitals Center's participation in these DR programs proves
that institutional facilities are able and willing to make significant
impacts toward stabilizing the New York City electric grid. This
serves as an excellent example of how institutional facilities can
participate in demand response programs nationwide.

Innovative Application of Residential Technology Award - Xcel
Energy

PLMA is pleased to announce that Xcel Energy has received an award
for its innovation in the use of technology to enhance the
effectiveness of its residential Saver's Switch(R) demand response
program. In operation for over 18 years, the program is serving nearly
435,000 residential and commercial customers providing more than 400
MW of peak load reduction on hot summer days.

Xcel has maintained an average annual customer retention of 99%
and much of that success can be attributed to Xcel's development of
the "virtual visit" to participants' homes to identify if switches are
working properly. Leveraging their AMI network, they developed a test
control strategy and data set from the customer that identified
switches no longer providing kW reductions. Eliminating actual site
visits to identify maintenance issues has saved ratepayers millions of
dollars and has enabled Xcel to bring more than 50 MW of
non-performing control loads back on line over the past four years.

Another outstanding aspect of Xcel's program relates to their use
of the worldwide web to demonstrate how the program works. Xcel's web
tool demonstrates to prospective participants how the program works.
The tool was awarded 'Best Energy Online Campaign' by the Web
Marketing Association. Xcel's innovative use of technology represents
how to sustain a mass market program such as direct load control so
that it can be counted on as an effective demand response resource.

Innovative Application of C&I Technology Award - Pacific Gas and
Electric

PLMA is pleased to announce that PG&E, in collaboration with the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Global Energy Partners LLC, and
Akuacom, has received an award for its innovation in the use of
technology to substantially improve the performance of its commercial
and industrial demand response programs. The automated demand response
(Auto-DR) program is an automation-based communications infrastructure
that provides DR program participants with electronic, Internet-based
price and reliability signals that are linked to facility energy
management control systems or related building and automation process
control systems.

Drawing on successful pilot efforts conducted in previous years,
the PG&E team was able to recruit and enable a total of 20 large
commercial, industrial and institutional customers representing 82
utility service accounts with Auto-DR systems. Over the course of the
summer of 2007 when DR events were called by PG&E, Auto-DR
participants were able to shed their loads according to the
pre-specified plans set up during the period of enablement. Customers
were notified of pending events and would always have the capability
and knowledge to override the automation system and opt-out of
specific DR events if their conditions did not warrant participating.
By linking existing advanced control technologies with the Internet,
PG&E was able to systematically establish automated load control from
PG&E's load dispatch center all the way to the customer end-use loads.
This is a breakthrough in the DR industry and could lead to
substantial DR program performance if adopted on a more wide-scale
basis.

Particularly impressive about the Auto-DR effort was the fact that
automation tended to improve the effectiveness of DR program
performance. The average load shed during the 2007 DR season for
automated CPP customers was 8% while the average shed for a sample of
comparable non-automated CPP customers was a negative 1%. PG&E
believes that similar patterns will emerge in 2008 when they compare
automated demand bidding (DBP) customers to non-automated DBP
customers.

Outstanding Program Achievement Award - Energy Curtailment
Specialists

PLMA is pleased to announce that Energy Curtailment Specialists,
Inc. (ECS) has received the Outstanding Program Achievement Award for
2007 for its efforts in administering the Operation Save New York
program, designed to assist the New York state wholesale power grid
when electric load demands are forecast to exceed the available
supply. When the New York ISO declares a DR emergency, Operation Save
New York has the capability to deliver nearly 700 MWs of load
reduction.

Particularly noteworthy was ECS' emphasis on "pure" load
curtailment, which is accomplished when customers reduce their energy
consumption without the use of backup generation. ECS targeted
industrial customers for participation in the program, given their
outstanding performance capability. ECS' customer portfolio also
includes smaller entities that are capable of reducing less than 200
kW to customers that have reduction targets in the 200-500 kW range.

ECS stresses involving the customer at every phase of their
participation in the program. For example, ECS works with the customer
during the time of enrollment to conduct a detailed audit that
identifies load reducing opportunities. Once the customer is recruited
and enabled for participating in DR events, ECS continually monitors
and updates the customer as to the likelihood that they may be called
upon during NYISO events. These steps have led to a high customer
satisfaction and a remarkable 99% renewal rate for participation in
the program.

Outstanding Outreach Award - Southern California Edison

Southern California Edison has received an award for outstanding
outreach efforts in connection with its 2007 Summer Discount Plan
Program. Following one of the hottest summers on record in 2006, SCE
embarked on an ambitious effort to double the enrollment of its
20-year old Summer Discount Plan Program in time for the summer of
2007.

During the planning process for the 2007 program, SCE recognized
that a significant re-thinking of the program design would be
necessary to ramp up to the intended implementation goals in such a
short period of time. The following techniques were employed:

-- SCE began communicating to its 3.9 million residential
customers early in the season (February and March) rather than
the typical April and May timeframes.

-- They went beyond traditional direct mail and reached a wider
range of customers through the company website, email
messages, and community events.

-- Multiple channels were offered for enrollment including phone
and online applications. The company offered region-specific
marketing themes allowing for recruitment via several
different message themes and incentives. SCE employees were
deployed as marketing channels to recruit and sign up their
friends and neighbors to the program.

-- Customers were informed of the program intricacies and the
technology details.

-- Processing of applications was streamlined through the
simplification of application forms.

-- SCE notified customers, via the company website, of cycling
events in progress.

These efforts paid off as SCE was able to bring on an additional
140,000 customers by December 2007 for a total load reduction
potential of 225 MW. SCE efforts serve as a model for how a large
utility can rapidly implement a demand response program and be able to
achieve its goals.

For further information, contact Elliot Boardman at (936) 271-5020
or eboardman@peaklma.com

The Peak Load Management Alliance
Elliot Boardman, 936-271-5020
eboardman@peaklma.com

Copyright Business Wire 2008