PLMA Groups
An Overview of PLMA’s Groups
Everyone is welcome to attend the Affinity and Interest Group gatherings, which are generally held on the Monday of each PLMA conference. PLMA members are also invited to the Interest and Affinity Groups’ HOT TOPIC Conversations (webinars) and Virtual Meetups which are scheduled throughout the year.
Building Electrification Charter
The Building Electrification Interest Group will address the growth of building electrification efforts and the need to manage the grid impacts from these efforts.
The goal will be to provide guidance for how electrification can bring value to all parties by sharing best practices on how homeowners, building property managers, utilities, vendors, trade allies and manufacturers can most effectively work together.
Emphasis will be placed on examining obstacles and opportunities with load management both from the grid and end-use perspective. PLMA member practitioners will also gain knowledge from industry experts who will address trends related to building electrification in residential, commercial and industrial applications.
Co-Chairs
Commercial & Industrial Load Management Charter
Commercial and Industrial (C&I) customers account for the majority of the utility load as well as revenue. These customers have enormous potential to contribute to and influence flexible load optimization, enhancing grid decarbonization, resilience, and reliability. The PLMA Commercial and Industrial (C&I) Load Flexibility Interest Group is an industry peer group to share and learn about opportunities and challenges in the C&I sector, and collaboratively explore solutions to further participation in load shifting and shaping initiatives. This Group focuses on showcasing customer-side load flexibility solutions in the C&I sector addressing:
- Grid resiliency and decarbonization solutions
- Current and future policy drivers and regulatory initiatives
- Implementation challenges by sub-sector
- Enabling solutions-driven partnerships
- Increasing customer engagement
Co-Chairs
Connected Devices Charter
The PLMA Connected Devices Interest Group seeks to examine the costs and benefits of all types of utility-sponsored programs that leverage connected devices to deliver demand response, energy efficiency, or other system benefits.
The PLMA Connected Devices Interest Group seeks to examine the costs and benefits of all types of utility-sponsored programs that leverage connected devices to deliver demand response, energy efficiency, or other system benefits.
Co-Chairs
Customer Engagement Charter
The PLMA Customer Engagement Interest Group believes flexible load management only works when utilities design pilots and programs with the customer experience in mind. Program efficacy goes beyond MW reduction; customer engagement and satisfaction are foundational to success.
The Group focuses on gathering and sharing best practices with industry peers to better understand the customer journey and to drive customer action. Together, we explore actionable solutions to customer engagement challenges, including acquisition and retention, and provide education on successful marketing approaches to technology, behavioral, and pricing-related initiatives. Specific areas of focus include:
- Customer Experience + Satisfaction
- Customer Journey
- Understanding the customer (research, etc.)
- Marketing & Communications (best practices, including channels, cadence, timing, etc.)
- Targeted Messaging
Co-Chairs
Electric Transportation Charter
The PLMA Electric Transportation Interest Group addresses the growing popularity of electric transportation and its impacts on demand response, grid reliability, and beneficial electrification.
Participants in this Interest Group’s activities will develop a deeper understanding and share best practices on how utilities and vendors can most effectively work together.
PLMA member practitioners will also gain knowledge from industry experts who will address trends related to both electric transportation and to the infrastructure and data needs for deploying light-duty, heavy-duty, and electric fleets.
Co-Chair
Global Load Management Charter
The PLMA Global Load Management Interest Group brings together PLMA members with an interest in flexible load management initiatives outside of North America.
Innovative global energy management initiatives provide practitioners here with an opportunity to explore and learn from relevant and timely programs, technologies, and approaches that are working well in other countries. These offer North American practitioners additional perspectives and learnings that can add value and save time as we address the energy transition.
Co-Chairs
Public Power and Co-ops Charter
Despite different ownership structures and missions, public power utilities, electric cooperatives and community choice aggregators (CCAs), share many unique challenges and opportunities not faced by investor-owned utilities (IOUs)….
The Public Power and Cooperatives Interest Group provides a place to share learnings from these innovative utilities, recognizing that many of these companies may still be in the early stages of their load management program journey.
Areas of Focus:
- Experiences and challenges in load flexibility — program design, implementation, customer recruitment and management of resources.
- Increasing membership and participation from public power, cooperatives, CAAs, and the G&T and JAA organizations that serve them.
- Discussing items that are unique to these utilities, such as: nonprofit financial structures, leadership and governance, and scale
Co-Chairs
Charter
The PLMA Retail Pricing Interest Group seeks to examine pricing- and rate-based demand flexibility mechanisms and programs. The group does not focus on a specific technology or solution.
The Group serves as a forum for sharing ideas, lessons learned, and best practices as it relates to the interconnection of retail pricing and demand flexibility. Through online and in-person events, the Group will cover rates/program evaluations, program design concepts, market assessments, savings potential, and more.
Rate/Program types that may be considered:
- Time-varying not fixed in advance (e.g, CPP, RTP, etc.)
- Rebate-based (e.g., PTR)
- Demand charges
- Market-based price formation (e.g., transactive energy)
- Behavioral demand response (with no price)?
Evaluation topics to consider:
- How effectively they achieve operational goals like peak load reduction
- How well they enable cost recovery for utilities
- How much they appeal to and enable savings for customers
- How fairly they allocate costs across customers
Implementation topics to consider:
- Educating customers
- Best practices for rolling out new rate structures
- Providing or supporting enabling technologies
Co-Chairs
ULME Charter
ULME is an informally organized private group for utility representatives and provides a forum for open and frank discussions of industry progress and challenges, opportunity to share real-world lessons learned, and a place to share honest questions, feedback, and opportunities. PLMA supports this group which does not charge dues.
GROUP STEERING COMMITTEE
Charter
The “Women in Load Flexibility” Affinity Group promotes female leadership and advocacy in the energy sector by:
- Fostering honest and constructive conversations on gender issues;
- Providing a forum for networking and professional development;
- Encouraging greater cooperation and communication among men and women to cultivate productive, diverse workplaces.
We strive to acknowledge and address the distinct experiences of all women in the energy industry.
CO-CHAIRS
