CalFlexHub seeks to advance the capability of smart building technologies and EV charging to provide load flexibility for the State of California and beyond. CalFlexHub’s research explores a range of pathways and control technologies to transmit dynamic prices and marginal GHG emission signals to devices for shifting (or shedding) load in support of grid decarbonization and reliability.

To accelerate these research goals, the CalFlexHub team is proud to offer a public participation opportunity through the Affiliate Program.

Objective

The CalFlexHub Affiliate Program supports manufacturers, automation service providers, and other industry and market stakeholders in testing their product or solution’s ability to integrate with hourly-varying prices and GHG signals hosted on the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) MIDAS server. Doing so will enable flexible customer electric loads to respond to the signal using new control algorithms. This will help the stakeholders save money on electric bills with highly dynamic retail electricity retail prices.

Key stakeholders include organizations such as product manufacturers, demand response aggregators, software developers, DERMs providers, control companies, building owners, and other technology owners and developers.

Why Join the Affiliate Program?

By participating in the Affiliate Program, your organization can:

  • Contribute to the growth of the automated responsive flexible loads technology development and deployment ecosystem
  • Align with the CA state’s vision, and advance the time when products can be introduced that are compatible with future California prices
  • Help improve the functionality and user experience of MIDAS (central to the CEC’s Load Management Standards rulemaking)
  • Gain visibility into the CalFlexHub activities and ecosystem
  • Benefit from the mutual learning with other peer participants and identify new business partners and opportunities

What We Offer

CalFlexHub is making available a set of fictitious, prototype research price profiles hosted on

the CEC’s Market Informed Demand Automation Server (MIDAS), which industry stakeholders can integrate with their automation technology and test the response capability of their flexible load devices (e.g., HVAC equipment, water heater, lighting, pool pumps, home appliances) or other distributed energy resources (DER) systems (e.g., batteries and EV charging).

  • CalFlexHub provides a set of simple, prototype 24-hour price profiles representing a typical day of each season in a year. Each 24-hour price profile is accompanied by a marginal greenhouse gas emission profile
  • Industry stakeholders can connect with the CEC’s MIDAS server to retrieve the aforementioned CalFlexHub prototype price and GHG signals for their own testing. CalFlexHub will be collecting user feedback to support the CEC enhancement of MIDAS.
  • CalFlexHub, through virtual meetings, will provide a platform for exchanging business interests around load flexibility and automated price/GHG signal response, end-to-end integration experience and Affiliate lessons learned, increasing visibility of Affiliate business activities and supporting market transformation.

As an optional resource, LBNL has created sample Python code for integrating DER devices with MIDAS. For additional technical instructions, visit here.

What’s Required to Join?

Participation in the CalFlexHub Affiliate Program is FREE! We will request load shift or load shape testing results with confidentiality options, as well as feedback on the server experience.

If your organization would like to participate, please sign up using the form here and a member from the CalFlexHub team will be in touch with you.

Disclaimer: Please note that LBNL will not be held liable for any issues connected to the use of the CalFlexHub price server signal or the MIDAS server. It is the responsibility of the users to obtain any permissions required by federal, state, or local law; which may or may not include Institutional Review Board (IRB) review to protect human subjects in research projects.

Contact

CalFlexHub Affiliate Program: CalFlexHubAffiliatePgm@lbl.gov

  • Contact LBNL for interest in becoming an CFH Affiliate,questions about signal content, and any other questions besides MIDAS technical support.

CEC MIDAS Technical Support: midas@energy.ca.gov

  • Contact CEC staff with any issues, assistance requests, or successes. Feedback is welcome!