Demand Response — Powered by Cortex
Cortex Sustainability Intelligence is proud to serve as your Demand Response partner, allowing you to generate revenue, reduce energy usage and carbon emissions, and support your local community.
What Is Demand Response?
During peak periods of energy use, such as hot summer days, the demand for energy can put too much of a strain on the electric grid. This can cause disruptions to the energy supply, resulting in brownouts and blackouts.
Demand response (DR) is a grid reliability program that commercial consumers can participate in, allowing them to receive payment in exchange for reducing their energy usage during peak periods to lessen the strain on the electric grid.
As your Demand Response partner, Cortex provides smart recommendations and a responsive customer service team that works with your building to determine the most efficient and least disruptive manner to help you reduce your energy consumption and hit your DR event goals.
Custom, Responsive Checklist
Cortex’s DR program provides your operations team with data-backed, intelligent recommendations formed by our data-driven insight and collaboration between your building and our customer success team.
Flat Fee Pricing
Cortex’s flat fee DR pricing is unique, allowing you to keep 100% of your DR revenue while you pay through Cortex’s software fee.
One-Stop Platform
When you choose Cortex as your DR partner, you have a one-stop platform that allows you access to HVAC visibility and meaningful savings all year long.
Platform Overview
Cortex’s Demand Response platform allows you to track your DR participation every step of the way — from pre-event preparation notifications and progress tracking, to post-event reporting. During an event, engineers will monitor the real-time progress, making informed energy-efficient decisions by using the Cortex customized checklist of data-back operational improvement recommendations to stay on target.
Upcoming Events & Event Details
Cortex alerts you both through the app and email, along with optional SMS or push notifications, so you never miss a DR event.
The Event Details page is where you’ll track your progress leading up to the event, during the event, and after the event. It includes your progress tracker, the customized Event Checklist, and a notes section that allows for more detailed tracking that will be archived in reporting post-event.
Event Checklist
Cortex’s sustainability experts will work with your building to create a customized Event Checklist to guide your building towards reaching your reduction commitment. The Event Checklist makes it easy to see what actions the engineer has already taken and what outstanding actions they can still implement to reach the event commitment.
Event Reporting
Cortex offers reporting directly from the app for Demand Response visibility into each event. Reports can be easily viewed and downloaded for each individual event or for all events in one single report.
Why Cortex?
Each commercial office building is collecting thousands of data points every day, yet across the industry, 90% of this data is not stored. Without a data-driven intelligence solution to store, process, and analyze that data, building owners are throwing away the data they need to meet demand response event commitments efficiently. It’s time to put that data to work.
Due to our pure software and data approach, our platform provides a one-stop decarbonization solution that allows you to make more significant carbon reduction strides that pay for itself. By adding our Demand Response aggregator service to your Cortex services, you get all of your energy reduction savings and reporting on one single platform.
Due to our access to data, we stand apart from other Demand Response aggregators by providing your engineers with visibility into building operations and real-time, predictive recommendations that keep your buildings on track during an event. Our predictive recommendations are built to drive higher DR event performance and, therefore, higher savings.
Plus, with our data-backed intelligence platform, Cortex is also always evolving and improving, meaning you’ll continue to see greater savings and returns when you choose Cortex as your Demand Response aggregator and long-term decarbonization partner.
Frequently Asked Questions
When Do Demand Response Events Occur?
DR events occur when the utility companies predict that the electricity grid may become overwhelmed. For example, they may occur during extreme weather, transmission outages, or emergency issues with equipment. This is why there are demand response seasons in the summer and winter as cities anticipate higher strains on the electric grid.
Who Offers Demand Response Programs in New York?
Cortex participates in two Demand Response programs:
- New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) — one of the region’s electric grid operators
- Consolidated Edison (ConEd) — an electric utility
Program details vary per program and per building. Contact our team to learn more about how these programs may apply to your buildings.
How Will My Building Be Notified About an Event?
Cortex is your one-stop source for DR event updates — starting from the initial alert that will reach the buildings’ engineering teams to alert them that a DR event is approaching.
Whenever your utility company or grid operator anticipates the need to reduce energy usage, they will notify our Cortex DR team. Our team will then reach out to you directly by SMS, email, push notification, and in-app notifications so that you are always in the know.
If our platform shows that no one in the building has opened the notifications or acknowledged the pre-event alerts, our Customer Success team will reach out to your team directly to confirm that they are prepared for the event and offer support to help them stay aligned with their goals.
What Is an Aggregator for Demand Response?
As a DR aggregator, Cortex will manage your DR events from start to finish so that you never have to wonder how to stay on course or if your energy usage is on track. Our aggregation services guide your operations team through energy reduction strategies and provide you with the software you need to easily monitor your demand response progress. Our goal is to help you maximize your financial rewards and energy savings without disrupting tenant comfort.
