[clarification needed] The reduction of expected energy use is a potential revenue source that may be manipulated to improve business performance and reduce waste and environmental impacts.
[1] Due to dramatic advances in web-based monitoring, real-time data analytics and utilities using peak pricing, energy reduction is now becoming a tangible asset that companies can measure, manage, procure and sell.
Energy efficiency projects have proven to be valuable to organizations in cost savings, as well as in reducing the carbon footprint, conservation and other positive environmental impacts.
Historically, Demand Response has played a vital role in emergency situations that create an imbalance on the energy grid, resulting in power outages and extreme costs.
In essence, the market for demand response stems from the end users ability to “sell” the energy not used when they curtail usage—at the same prices as real megawatts of generated electricity.
Utilizing new technologies to gather data and implement energy efficiency measures is key to generating ERAs.