Dive Brief:
- David Brewster, president of demand response provider EnerNOC, has told Greentech Media that recent legal setbacks cannot kill the demand response industry because there is too much value in those resources.
- Last week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to review an earlier decision to strike down Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Order 745, which put demand response at market parity with other resources in wholesale energy markets. FirstEnergy Corp. has requested a broader review of the order's implications in capacity markets.
- EnerNOC President David Brewster is hoping that FERC appeals the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but said only about 2% of his company's revenues are impacted. Brewster remains optimistic about the future of demand response regardless of the outcome.
Dive Insight:
The decision to overturn FERC Order 745 slashed the annual growth rate of U.S. demand response almost in half, according to a recent report by Greentech Media, dropping it from 8% to 4.9% through 2023. Even so, Brewster said it was too late for legal challenges to do long-term harm to the demand response marketplace.
“I am confident that no matter how this shakes out, the value of DR will be maintained,” Brewster told Greentech Media. “A legal technicality won’t put the genie back in the bottle."
EnerNOC provides software that enables demand response solutions and has posted about $1 billion in revenue over the last three years. But only a small portion of that revenue comes from markets impacted by the court's decision, Brewster noted, though FirstEnergy has requested the courts take a broader look at Order 745, possibly expanding the impact.
