The Division of Electric Energy Systems of the Department of Energy is funding a nationwide demonstration of electric load management through the use of utility-controlled customer-side thermal energy storage for residential space conditioning. These demonstration projects, which are being conducted by utilities under contract to ORNL, are designed to (1) collect reliable load-research data for assessing the impact on the utility system, (2) delineate and solve installation problems, (3) establish maintainability, (4) illuminate customer and utility acceptance, and (5) generate cost data. Ten demonstrations, 5 heat storage and 5 cool storage, are underway. The thermal energy storage systems being demonstrated include ceramic brick, pressurized water, and building structural heat-storage systems, and ice-cool-storage systems. The demonstrations will cover two full conditioning seasons. The results obtained from these demonstrations are expected to be useful to utilities in making local load management decisions, to assist DOE in establishing priorities for R and D efforts in load management, and to provide objective information related to electric-system impact, energy conservation, and the cost-effectiveness of this form of load management
