What are the costs?

The only potential costs to a school are the time required to develop your energy reduction plan and the cost associated with installing any necessary power meters. ( Each building is required to have an electric meter that records your consumption on an hourly basis. Many schools already have these. For those who need to install meters, the meters cost approximately $500 - $700 and must be installed and operational by April 30, 2009.) These costs can generally be easily offset by the payments that schools will receive in as compensation for participating. There are no other costs to participate in this program.

If I participate, what changes will my school have to make?

The demand response program has been designed to be easy to implement. A representative of ClearChoice Energy will work with you to develop an energy reduction plan. After developing a plan for how you could reduce energy use in an emergency, the process should be straightforward.

In the case of an emergency, ClearChoice Energy will contact you and ask that you implement your energy reduction plan. The most straightforward way to implement a program is to shut down lights and HVAC systems in an emergency, but many other variations exist; for example, a school might use on-site generators, increase thermostats in the summer (rather than shutting off air conditioning altogether) or shut down only a portion of a building.

It is worth noting the electric grid operatator has never called an emergency situation requiring schools to implement their energy reduction plans in Northern Illinois.

What if I sign up for the program and but am not able to cut back my energy use when an emergency occurs?

If you sign up to participate in the program and are called to implement your plan in an emergency but are unable to do so, you will not suffer any out of pocket costs. You will be able to continue participating in the program, but your subsequent payments will be reduced.

What’s the difference between the ‘emergency’ and the ‘economic’ demand response programs?

When you sign up, you can agree to sign up for the emergency program, or the emergency and the economic programs. The emergency program would require schools to implement their energy reduction plan during times of projected peak demand which could cause energy disruptions through brown-outs or even black-outs.

The economic program is an additional completely voluntary program where schools can implement their energy reduction plan during periods of price peaks - and receive additional compensation for participation. The school can decide day-to-day when they want to participate in this program, and by how much. In essence, we’d be notifying you of times when there are short-term energy cost spikes and asking you to reduce your use – a double benefit of you – using less energy when it's most expensive AND getting paid to do it.

Who runs this program? Where does the money come from?

This program is offered by ClearChoice Energy – a Curtailment Service Provider who is a member of PJM Interconnection. PJM Interconnection is the regional electricity grid operator that manages electricity reliability in states from Pennsylvania to Illinois.

A service agreement will be signed with ClearChoice Energy. Payments will be made to the school on a quarterly basis from ClearChoice Energy.

Healthy Schools Campaign (HSC) has partnered with ClearChoice Energy to help market the program to schools in Illinois. HSC receives payments from ClearChoice Energy for providing this service. That funding is used to support HSC’s environmental health program and policy work.

If I can't participate in 2009, can I participate in this program next year?

If you are interested in participating in this program but are outside the current territory or are unable to complete the registration process by Jan. 31, please let us know. We will contact you with information about opportunities to participate for the 2010-11 school year.