Reducing carbon dioxide emissions from electricity sector using demand side management

This paper discusses the Clean Power Plan (CPP) legislation and its repeal on the emissions from electricity generation sources. Demand side management (DSM) is probed to illustrate an alternative technique to achieve lower emissions goals. This work discusses the Climate Action Plan (CAP) corresponding to Fort Collins, Colorado, U.S. and its timeline targets. Therefore, the paper provides a technique for prioritizing DSM options through a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM). In that regard, a framework is created to examine several options of DSM in reducing carbon footprints. The algorithm states that affecting Greenhouse Gases (GHG) in electric power system is the main goal and this can be achieved by implementing DSM technologies in distribution systems. MCDM algorithms have been proposed to prioritize alternatives and select the ones that achieve suitable emissions reduction. The findings from Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) show that the "communication and intelligence" option has a global priority of 0.341 making it the potential optimal alternative in achieving the goal. The second alternative is "electric stationary storage" with global priority of 0.207. The results obtained from Analytic Network Process (ANP) suggest that "communication and intelligence" is the optimum technology to reach the target with a priority of 0.284.