Flexible Demand Appliance Standards

Senate Bill 49 (Skinner, 2019) authorizes the California Energy Commission to adopt flexible demand appliance standards (FDAS) to facilitate the deployment of flexible demand technologies. The standards emphasize measures to support grid reliability and avoid greenhouse gas emissions by scheduling, shifting, or curtailing appliance operations. The standards need to be feasible and cost-effective.

The FDAS dashboard allows users to view avoided GHG emissions, bill savings, energy shift potential, and changes in criteria air pollution by region, based on analysis and data from the FDAS Final Staff Report—in this case, for pool controls. The dashboard also illustrates how changes in the operations of a pool can impact disadvantaged and low-income communities.

Pool controls automate various pool maintenance systems. FDAS for pool controls, when sold as new in California, require a default operation schedule and internet connectivity. These standards enable an appliance to schedule, shift, or curtail the electrical demand with the consumer’s consent.

As the FDAS office adopts standards for additional devices, this dashboard will expand to include layers for viewing all FDAS scoped devices.

Dashboard is best viewed from a computer. Visit full page layout of dashboard or download the Final Staff Report.

Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (CO2e): A measure used to compare emissions from various greenhouse gases based upon the related global warming potential. The carbon dioxide equivalent for a gas is derived by multiplying the mass of the gas by the associated global warming potential.

Criteria Air Pollutant (CAP): An air pollutant for which acceptable levels of exposure can be determined and for which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set an ambient air quality standard. Examples include ozone (O3), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), and particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5). Ammonia (NH3) is not CAP but a precursor to PM2.5, likewise Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are a precursor to ground-level ozone.

Equivalent Gasoline Car Emissions: the number of average gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year that would emit the same amount of greenhouse gases as the quantity being evaluated.

Energy Shift: The total amount of electricity that is shifted from one time period to another through load shifting strategies. For this analysis, Energy Shift refers specifically to the sum of all energy shifted out of the 6–9 PM peak hours across all days in a calendar for a given year.

Gigawatt-Hour (GWh): A unit of energy representing 1 billion watt-hours (or 1 million kilowatt-hours).

Greenhouse Gas (GHG): Any gas that absorbs infrared radiation in the atmosphere. Common examples of greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), halogenated fluorocarbons (HCFCs), ozone (O3), perfluorinated carbons (PFCs), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

Load Serving Entity (LSE): An organization responsible for securing electricity to meet the demand of its customers. LSEs include investor-owned utilities (IOUs), publicly owned utilities (POUs), community choice aggregators (CCAs), and electric service providers (ESPs). They forecast load, procure energy, and ensure resource adequacy to serve end-use customers within their service areas. In this dashboard the five largest LSEs of California based on their retail sales are displayed.

Megawatt (MW): A unit of power equal to 1 million watts, especially as a measure of the output of a power station.

Peaker Power Plants: Electricity-generating facilities that operate during periods of high electricity demand, known as peak hours. They typically run on natural gas or diesel, have fast start-up times, and are less efficient and more expensive to operate than baseload plants. Their capacity is usually measured in megawatts (MW), and because they rely on fossil fuels, they emit greenhouse gases (GHG) and contribute to air pollution, particularly during high-demand periods.

Watt-hour (Wh): A unit of energy that measures the amount of electricity used or produced over time, equal to one watt of power used for one hour. For example, a 100-watt light bulb running for 10 hours uses 1000 watt-hours (or 1 kilowatt-hour) of energy.

Information

Criteria Air Pollutant (CAP) data represented here is generated using US EPA's AVoided Emissions and geneRation Tool (AVERT).

DAC Census Tracts: Census tracts are classified as Disadvantaged Communities based on their population's exposure and vulnerability to pollution. Classification uses the multi-criteria CalEnviroScreen. More information is available on the California Air Resources Board's (CARB) Cap-and-Trade Auction Proceeds Funding Guidelines for Administering Agencies page. The Census tracts represented use 2010 boundaries.

Low-Income Communities: As designated by AB 1550, Low-Income Communities are Census tracts that are either at or below 80 percent of the statewide median income, or are at or below the threshold designated as low-income by the California Department of Housing and Community Development's list of State Income Limits. More information is available on the CARB Disadvantaged and Low-Income Communities Investments page.

Data last updated: June 27, 2025

Data Collection Information
Data is compiled from CEC publications and stakeholder reports available in the California Energy Commission Dockets. https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/Lists/DocketLog.aspx?docketnumber=23-FDAS-01

CONTACT

Please submit questions and comments to Flexible Demand Appliance Standards at flexdemandstandards@energy.ca.gov.