Make money, protect the environment, and contribute to national infrastructure security. No, that's not the latest campaign slogan of one of the presidential candidates. Those are the benefits of participating in a demand-response program with your electricity provider. The concept is simple: Scale down your operations when the electrical grid is constrained and in jeopardy of experiencing blackouts, and your electricity provider will pay you for being a resource that has improved the reliability of that grid. The electricity that companies free up by participating in these programs gives the utility the equivalent of an extra power plant or extra transmission line when it needs it most, so the utility pays what that power is worth on the wholesale market. That's right-you get paid for the value of the electricity you're not using.
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