Demand response is becoming an ever-increasing asset in the smart grid
ecosystem. While these assets are critical to customers’ ability to make choices to potentially reduce energy consumption, they are vital to the operations of many electric utilities for peak load management, economic control, and distribution system operations and optimization. Making this linkage between the utility back
office and its customers requires a platform capable of adapting to ever-changing
business needs while remaining focused on providing the infrastructure for both
command and control, as well as customer empowerment. Comverge’s Apollo is
a next-generation demand response platform capable of integrating with legacy
paging systems and future AMI deployments, with the ability to provide two-way,
real-time communication between utilities and their customers of all classes,
including commercial and industrial customers, small business owners, and
residential customers.

Apollo is based on an open-standards approach using web services, open
database application programming interfaces, and application server architectures that allow utilities to pick and choose which applications will work
best for them. Due to the strong enforcement of an open-standards approach,
Comverge’s Apollo Demand Response Management System (DRMS) is not a
single solution, but rather an expandable platform for the next generation of
systems to enable easy and simple adaptation to future business needs and
system requirements.

Comverge’s Apollo Demand Response Management System
(DRMS) was designed with four fundamental functional
elements in mind that are required to support the emerging
smart grid transformation:

1. Communication: Integrate with and functionally expand a
   utilities back office infrastructure to allow for future AMI and
   smart grid deployments. This system also supports interfaces
   for any third-party systems, including Computer Information
   System (CIS) and SCADA systems.
2. Command and control: Provide all command and control
   operations including:
   • Grouping and addressing structures: Apply device settings
     or perform maintenance tasks on multiple devices at one
     time by location or other customized setting.
   • Algorithms and control operations: Implement control
     operations using a variety of control specifications based
     on ZigBee®, AMI, or paging systems. Information about the
     current state of the system, including running and pending
     events, system topology, alarms, and external data feeds
     is available through a customized dashboard. The direct
     load control interface will allow a dispatcher to setup and
     activate, track pending or running schedules, and cancel or
     modify schedules. Apollo supports addressing/operations
     structures capable of supporting control-based models on
     the following:
     • System address or utility I.D.
     • Weather region
     • Substation
     • Feeder
     • Distribution transformer
     • Individual address, serial number, or customer account
   • Device management and configuration: Perform
     management and administrative tasks such as restoring,
     importing, and exporting device configuration settings. An
     administration tool will make it easy to define and update
     devices including device networks, serial ports, security,
     and alarms, and to easily update firmware and redirect
     devices to different destinations. Through device and
     connection monitoring features, system administrators can
     get up-to-date information and statistics about a device’s
     status and activity and view connection status and history
     information. This tool reports and logs all events to and
     from devices and provides the utility with a system of
     record for all device operations.
   • Event generation and control: Dispatch management tools
     for submitting prescheduled control events, reliability control
     events, and economic dispatch events.
3. Data management: Provides data collection including
   validation and verification information and additional
   parameters such as measurement and verification data used to
   perform demand response operations.
4. Knowledge applications: Provides graphical and statistical
   information for the user to visually analyze and evaluate the
   performance of a demand response program.

Through the Apollo customer web interface, PowerPortal, utilities can select the functions and operations they want to make available to the end-customer program participants, including:

Weather information/dashboard:
Weather data can be collected by the customer’s zip code and used for energyanalysis
tools. The dashboard will also display current thermostat settings and
confi gurations, including information on the system profi le being used, current
temperatures, fi lter times remaining, and system operations.

Thermostat programming:
Customers can program however many thermostats they have in their residence
through the thermostat programming dashboard. The intuitive interface allows the
customer to program any number of thermostat profiles and save their profiles for
future use. Additionally, customers can confi gure the permanent and scheduled hold
operations such as vacation settings.

Event overrides:
Customers may select the days that they do not want to participate in a demand
response event. The interface verifi es that the maximum number of events has not
been exceeded and provides the customer verifi cation of an opt-out.

Reports and analysis:
Reports provide customers a side-by-side view of historical energy usage patterns
alongside temperature data to track their energy consumption and monitor costs.

Alert messages:
Customers may be alerted of specifi c conditions and situations that require
their attention.