Load management is defined as reducing customer peak electric loads at times of supply constraints. These supply constraints are caused by either a lack of additional electric generation or congestion on the electric transmission system. Electric utilities and transmission system operators perform load management functions through voluntary demand-response programs with businesses. The benefits of load management include lower overall electricity costs, fewer problems with locating sites for transmission lines and electricity-generation stations, and reduced environmental pollution because of the need for fewer peak generators.

Can load management through lighting meet the needs of the customer as well as the needs of the energy supplier, electric utilities and transmission system operators? Lighting and lighting controls certainly possess many positive attributes required for load management to be successful in the marketplace. The majority of businesses have lighting loads, so the number of customers eligible to participate is substantial. Reductions in lighting loads, unlike other manageable loads, are very predictable and repeatable, two highly desirable qualities for load management programs. With the development of additional advanced lighting controls, lighting loads become easy to control from either a remote location or at the point of use. Dimming, rather than turning off lights, has the added advantage of avoiding or minimizing any productivity losses. Recent studies at the LRC have found that 100 hours of dimming per year would capture most of the economic benefit of load management. Further LRC research has shown that dimming lamps to approximately one-third of maximum output would not significantly impact the life of currently available lamps.

What is missing to allow for the successful use of lighting and its controls in the load management marketplace? A simple, low-cost fluorescent dimming ballast and the communication links capable of communicating with a central controller are not commercially available yet.

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