PLMA Announces 2005 Demand Response Awards Winners.

GEORGETOWN, Texas -- The Peak Load Management Alliance (PLMA) today announced the winners of their 2005 Demand Response Annual Awards. The presentations of the Awards were made at the PLMA Annual Awards Luncheon during the PLMA Spring Conference, "A Critical Update on Demand Response," in Alexandria, Virginia, March 13-14, 2006.

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, natural gas, and oil 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 and a description of why they were chosen follows:

Outstanding Achievement in Demand Response - Korea Electric Power Corporation, (KEPCO),

PLMA is pleased to announce that KEPCO has received the 2005 Outstanding Achievement Award for its efforts in the demand response area during the year 2005. KEPCO's peak load is approximately equal to that of the entire state of California. In 2005 Korea's was 54,631 MW on Aug 17. Without KEPCO's portfolio of demand response programs, the peak load would have been 57,602 MW. This is a reduction of 5.2% of the peak loads without the current programs. In Fiscal year 2005, program expenditures of $93,880,000 enabled avoided costs of $646,300,000 for additional generation, transmission and distribution for a benefit/cost ratio of 6.89.

PLMA selected the KEPCO for recognition because of its tremendous achievements in lowering peak loads on a huge scale at great financial and environmental savings.

Outstanding Achievement by an End-User Award - Department of Capital Asset Management (DCAM), Commonwealth of Massachusetts

PLMA is pleased to announce that The Department of Capital Asset Management, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, has received an award for outstanding efforts by an end user in the demand response area, DCAM's Demand Response Winter Supplemental Program. Although this is a 2005 Award, the program actually began at the end of 2005 and was implemented in early 2006 - an incredibly short time.

In response to Hurricane Katrina's impact on the natural gas and oil markets, and to deal with the changes in the market structure and the potential disruptions in the generation and distribution of power statewide, DCAM issued a request for response in late December 2005 to implement a Demand Response Winter Supplemental Program by January 16, 2006. After a competitive process, DCAM selected ConsumerPowerline to implement the demand response program.

The program included 19 government facilities including universities, hospitals and correctional facilities statewide. The facilities enrolled included spanned several major state agencies:

--Department of Corrections

--Department of Youth Services

--Department of Public Health

--Department of Mental Health

--University of Massachusetts

Massachusetts' was able to quickly react to the threats of blackout posed by Katrina and create and launch a supplemental winter program in less than 60 days.

The DCAM team demonstrated a commitment to move on a dime to deliver both grid reliability for the state and a new source of funds for participants. Speed to market, particularly when government facilities are involved, was incredible.

For this achievement, PLMA is pleased to present the Award of "Outstanding Achievement by an End-User" to the Division of Capital Asset Management of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Outstanding Outreach Award - New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)

PLMA is pleased to announce that NYSERDA has received the Outstanding Outreach Award for 2005 for its outstanding efforts in administering the New York Energy $mart(SM) program, designed to support certain public benefit programs during the transition to a more competitive electricity market. In particular, the Peak Load Reduction Program.

Program results were 460 MW installed, verified and callable through July 2005. Of that total, 374 MW were from long-term energy-efficiency measures. Once these resources were acquired, they continue to provide demand relief over the course of their equipment life. The remaining 86 MW is an annual amount of curtailable load procured for the summer 2005 peak demand period. The program is quite efficient with overall demand resources costing approximately $71/kW.

The results of an independent evaluation of the program show that there is good satisfaction with the program by participants with 84% indicating their satisfaction level of fully-met or exceeded expectations. Nearly all of the program participants also participated in the NYISO demand response programs.

For this achievement, PLMA is pleased to present the Award of "Outstanding Outreach" to NYSERDA.

Innovative Program Design Award - PG&E and the Energy Coalition for the Business Energy Coalition Program:

The Business Energy Coalition Program (BEC) is an initiative between Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and more than 30 major San Francisco business and civic leaders, facilitated by The Energy Coalition. The pilot project was launched on July 1, 2005.

The objective of the Business Energy Coalition is to provide a vehicle that allows businesses and other groups, who otherwise find it difficult to participate in demand response programs, to join forces to reduce electric energy use during peak demand days and help avoid power emergencies. On "Energy Action Days," when demand is greatest on the state's electrical system, BEC members work together to shed at least 10 MW of load from the group's peak electrical demand. Performance evaluation is based on the overall performance of the group during the curtailment event.

Between July 1, and December 31, 2005, seven "Energy Action Days" were called totaling 31 hours, and resulting in an average load reduction of 14.6 MW per event (146% of the 10 MW goal). BEC members earned $500,000 in incentives; half paid at the end of October, 2005 and the balance distributed in January 2006.

The Business Energy Coalition was particularly innovative in a number of ways:

1.Focusing on the San Francisco business district which has experienced electric capacity issues for a number of years

2.Designing a program from the customer's perspective; identifying and meeting the needs of a niche customer market

3.Creating an opportunity for business, local government and utility interests to work together toward a common goal

4.Implementing a "cooperative" approach which encourages participation from a customer sector that ordinarily finds demand response programs not conducive to their business operation needs

5.Providing a comprehensive strategy - energy analysis, metering and monitoring tools, employee education - to help ensure successful results

For these reasons, PLMA is proud to present PG&E and the Energy Coalition the Outstanding Program Design Award for the Business Energy Coalition Program.