Lessons Learned in Implementing a Demand Side Management Contract at the Presidio of San Francisco

The National Park Service (NPS) recently completed the implementation phase of its PowerSaving Partners (PSP) Demand Side Management (DSM) contract with the local utility, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). Through the DSM contract, NPS will receive approximately $4.1 million over eight years in payment for saving 61 kW of electrical demand, 179,000 kWh of electricity per year, and 1.1 million therms of natural gas per year. These payments are for two projects: the installation of high-efficiency lighting systems at the Thoreau Center for Sustainability and the replacement of an old central boiler plant with new, distributed boilers.

Although these savings and payments are substantial, the electrical savings and contract payments fall well short of the projected 1,700 kW of electrical demand, 8 million kWh of annual electricity savings, and $11 million in payments, anticipated at the projects onset. Natural gas savings exceeded the initial forecast of 800,000 therms per year.

The DSM contract payments did not meet expectations for a variety of reasons which fall into two broad categories: first, many anticipated projects were not constructed, and second, some of the projects that were constructed were not included in the program because the cost of implementing the DSM programs measurement and verification (M&V) requirements outweighed anticipated payments.

This paper discusses the projects implemented, and examines the decisions made to withdraw some of them from the DSM contract. It also presents the savings that were realized and documented through M&V efforts. Finally, it makes suggestions relative to M&V protocols to encourage all efficiency measures, not just those that are easy to measure.