by Shane Henson — January 20, 2012—As the world’s largest energy user, China has sought to develop a “smarter” electrical grid to better manage the country’s growing demand for energy, and recently called upon the expertise of Honeywell to help in one of its many endeavors.
Honeywell, a Fortune 100 company that invents and manufactures technologies to address tough challenges linked to global macrotrends such as safety, security, and energy, has signed an agreement with the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA) to implement China’s first Smart Grid Demand Response project. The TEDA is Northern China’s finest state-sponsored development area; several major multinational companies have chosen to locate there because of a highly attractive suite of benefits.
Under the Honeywell-TEDA agreement, Honeywell will conduct a demonstration project using its automated demand response (Auto DR) technology at select facilities within the TEDA development area, including office buildings, government and commercial facilities, and industrial plants.
Buildings account for approximately 70 percent of all electrical use and a majority of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Honeywell’s smart grid technology and expertise connects the utility and its customers so they can automatically adjust energy consumption to reduce demands on the energy grid, Honeywell’s leadership says.
With Honeywell’s Auto DR technology, customers establish customized energy reduction strategies for their facilities that are put into action automatically by utilities during a demand-response event. Through Auto DR, utilities can quickly and reliably reduce overall energy consumption during peak use periods, and commercial customers can cut their energy use and costs without compromising critical operations. Auto DR helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the need to run expensive “peak power” plants, which typically sit idle until customers require more electricity than the utility is able to provide using its primary, base-load generators.
Deployment of Auto DR can effectively reduce peak loads by 15 to 30 percent and, when done at scale, can create the effect of a “virtual power plant” that generates “negawatts”—or reduced demand—instead of megawatts, explains Honeywell. The project will help TEDA to improve its investment and operational profile, as well as make a contribution to energy efficiency and the environment.
