What is the Capacity Bidding Program Elect (CBP-E)?
As your electricity provider, we’re not just focused on delivering your electricity; we’re here to help you find ways to reduce your energy use. For businesses of all sizes, we offer the Capacity Bidding Program Elect, which rewards you for reducing energy when energy prices are high, demand reaches critical levels, or supply is limited. By pledging to use less energy when a CBP-E event is called, your business can help us prevent outages and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, all while earning incentives that can create significant savings with your electric bill.
Get Paid to Reduce with CBP-E
- Participate through a CBP-E Aggregator or Self-Aggregate your portfolio of service accounts
- Your incentive payment(s) is based upon your agreement with your CBP-E Aggregator
- You can work with your CBP-E Aggregator to choose how and how much you want to participate
How It Works
Your business can participate by making monthly nominations (also known as “bids”), to reduce your energy load and be compensated with payments based on your actual energy reduction when a Capacity Bidding Program event is called. This program is designed to offer you the flexibility to adjust your bid and your participation preferences every month. You may select to be notified the day before an event. You’ll never be required to reduce your load by more than 24 hours in any month.
Ready to apply?
Select a CBP-E Aggregator below or learn how to become an aggregator for your service accounts. For more information, contact your SCE Account Manager or the Demand Response Help Desk at 1-866-334-7827. Our tariff sheet provides complete terms and conditions for the Capacity Bidding Program Elect.
List of CBP-E Aggregators
How to Become a CBP-E Aggregator
To become a CBP-E Aggregator, print, complete, and submit the Aggregator Agreement and Credit Application. Once we receive your application, our credit services department will review your credit history and determine whether or not you meet the credit requirements or must provide a deposit. If you are required to submit a deposit, you can provide us with your expected maximum capacity nomination, and we will inform you of the appropriate deposit amount required to participate. The deposit amount may increase depending on your expected maximum capacity nomination.
If your application has been approved and we have received your deposit (if required), you will be notified and will receive your CBP-E website login and password information. Additionally, your name will appear on our website's list of Aggregators on this page. If you wish, you can request that your name not be listed on our website.
Once you are an official aggregator, you must complete an Aggregator Add Form for each customer you add to your portfolio. The Aggregator Add Form also acknowledges the customer’s intent to release their information to you (the aggregator). After submitting the required forms, we will complete the enrollment process and notify you when you may begin placing nominations with the Capacity Bidding Program Elect. The Aggregator Remove Form is required when you want to remove a customer from your portfolio.
Capacity Bidding Program Elect Frequently Asked Questions
Capacity Bidding Program Elect FAQ
Participating customers may be general service and agricultural service accounts, that are Bundled Service, Direct Access or Community Choice Aggregation customers. To be eligible to participate in CBP-E, customers must have the appropriate interval metering equipment installed. The interval meter must be able to record energy usage data in hourly intervals.
Customers can only enroll in CBP-E through an aggregator. A CBP-E Aggregator can be a third-party or customer that has met the CBP-E Aggregator requirements and aggregates its own service accounts.
CBP-E does not have any minimum monthly demand requirements for businesses but CBP-E Aggregators might. Please contact your CBP-E Aggregator for their participation requirements.
The CBP-E offers two types of incentive payments: Energy Payments and Capacity Payments.
- Energy Payments are only earned when events occur and are based on your actual energy-use reduction.
- Capacity Payments are based upon a CBP-E Aggregator’s monthly nominated capacity and vary depending on the month’s capacity price. The closer your average actual energy load reduction during event hours is to your bid/nomination amount, the higher your Capacity Payment. If no event is called in a given month, you’ll receive the full Capacity Payment. If you fail to meet your bid commitment during an event, you may be subject to penalties, so we recommend bidding reduction levels that are attainable.
CBP-E is designed to give CBP-E Aggregators the control and flexibility to change their commitment, or “Capacity Nomination”, on a month-to-month basis. Once enrolled CBP-E Aggregators you’ll have access to our easy online system to choose their bid amount and set notification preferences. You can also opt to be notified the day before the event, by your choice of email, SMS text message, or telephone.
Customers with AutoDR enabling technology may also be able to receive automated signals from SCE’s Demand Response Automation Server for CBP-E events.
Once Capacity Nominations are submitted, you can change your nominated accounts or amounts up until the nomination deadline which is 15 calendar days before the start of the operating month.
No. Each service account may only be nominated once per operating month.