Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO), one of the 15 largest electric cooperatives in the United States with more than 169,000 member accounts, has signed a two-year contract extension with Itron, Inc.
Itron will continue to provide SMECO with a fully outsourced and pay-for-performance demand response solution that helps the cooperative ensure reliable power and lower rates for its members as part of SMECO's CoolSentry load management program.
Since 2008, Itron has collaborated with SMECO to administer the CoolSentry program, which enables the utility to reduce peak demand. Itron’s cost-effective demand response solution increases reliability and lowers costs to SMECO’s residential and commercial and industrial (C&I) members.
As a fully outsourced solution, Itron recruits customers into the program, installs the necessary load control equipment, and operates the program using Itron's IntelliSOURCE Enterprise cloud-based software. Itron IntelliSOURCE Enterprise software is the foundation for CoolSentry as it automates every phase of the program to ensure seamless and reliable delivery for a consistent customer experience. Over the course of the three-year pay-for-performance agreement, Itron will provide up to 59 MW of available capacity to the cooperative.
"We have seen great success with Itron's demand response solution over the last 13 years and look forward to continuing to provide energy savings to our members," said Jeff Shaw, vice president of distributed energy resources and sustainability at SMECO. "Our SMECO CoolSentry load management program also plays a critical role in averting energy shortages in our community during periods of high demand."
"At Itron, we are committed to optimizing the benefits of distributed energy resources and their impact on the grid," said Don Reeves, senior vice president of outcomes at Itron. "Our continued collaboration with SMECO to provide a demand response solution will ensure reliable and affordable service to all of its members in Southern Maryland."
IntelliSOURCE is a proven turnkey distributed energy resource management (DERM) solution used to address peak capacity, load management, and non-wires alternative use cases for residential and C&I markets. IntelliSOURCE manages 1.1 GW with more than three million installed devices. IntelliSOURCE is extensible beyond load control to optimize the grid for distributed energy resources, such as electric vehicles, rooftop solar, and behind-the-meter battery storage.
