Utilities are constantly balancing the need to meet growing electricity demand while managing costs and ensuring grid reliability. While Direct Load Control (DLC) and Automated Demand Response (ADR) programs often grab the spotlight, there’s a foundational flexibility solution that is often overlooked: Behavioral Demand Response (BDR).

BDR might seem like yesterday’s technology—after all, it started with simple phone calls from grid operators to facility managers. But BDR has never been more relevant and impactful. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), ubiquitous smartphones, and more customer awareness of grid events are transforming BDR from a “hope for the best” marketing campaign into a predictable, scalable demand flexibility resource.

Low Barriers and High Rewards with BDR

One of BDR’s greatest strengths is its universal accessibility. Unlike device-based programs that often skew toward single-family, middle-to-high income households, BDR achieves roughly equal representation across all customer segments. This makes it particularly valuable for reaching traditionally underserved communities, including Low-to-Moderate Income (LMI) customers, Disadvantaged Communities (DAC), and multi-family housing residents who may have limited access to smart devices.

Participating in a BDR program is simple. Customers need only their utility account number and name to participate—no equipment purchases, no technical installations, no eligibility screenings. This translates to faster enrollment and broader participation across a utility’s customer base.

Six Advantages of BDR for Utilities

More accessible for customers

Many customers remain hesitant to give their utility direct control of their devices. BDR respects this preference while still delivering meaningful load reduction, making it easier to build trust and participation. The program is accessible to all customers––not just smart thermostat owners. 

Can be up and running quickly

Perhaps most importantly for program managers facing urgent load growth challenges, BDR can be deployed quickly. Pioneer Community Energy launched their BDR program in just 83 days, holding their first demand response event within three months of kickoff. The ability to rapidly deploy BDR reduces administrative overhead, enabling utilities to focus on optimizing performance and recruiting customers. 

Seasonal flexibility

Unlike some device-specific programs, BDR operates effectively year-round, giving utilities demand flexibility when it’s needed most, regardless of the season.

Cost effectiveness

Compared to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs, BDR requires lower upfront investment and reduced program complexity while still delivering meaningful demand reduction.

On-ramp for automated programs

BDR can introduce customers to available energy programs and incentives. Customers who participate in BDR programs are significantly more likely to eventually enroll in direct load control programs, making BDR a strategic acquisition tool for your entire demand flexibility portfolio.

Implementation flexibility

Utilities can choose opt-in or opt-out enrollment strategies based on the regulatory environment and customer preferences. BDR offers multiple pathways to market—with “best effort notifications,” as a DR program, or bundled with a rate program. 

• “Best effort” notifications are quickest to deploy and have the lowest costs, consisting of enrollment, segmentation, and communication. While this method can be applied to all customers, it does have the lowest impact. 
• A DR program approach provides event-based dispatch using AMI data with M&V, providing more predictable participation and load shift across all customer segments. It requires DSM budget authorization. 
• BDR events can be combined with a time-varying rate (TVR) with rebates or peak price incentives, with the potential to tailor the incentive to different customer segments. This approach also requires AMI data and DSM or TVR budget authorization.

Customer Experience is the Key to BDR Success

Successful BDR programs require more than just sending event notifications. They demand a comprehensive approach to customer engagement:

Explain what it is: Customers need context about their electricity consumption patterns and clear explanations of how reducing peak usage benefits both their bills and the broader grid. Don’t assume customers understand the difference between BDR, DLC, ADR, energy efficiency, and rate programs.

Provide incentives: Whether financial rewards, rebates, or creative non-financial incentives like gamification, customers need compelling reasons to change their behavior during events.

Personalize communications: Tailor your messaging to different customer segments before, during, and after events. A one-size-fits-all approach won’t maximize participation or effectiveness.

Build scale: BDR’s true power emerges when implemented across a large, diverse customer base. Broad participation creates meaningful peak reduction while distributing the effort across many participants.

Report out on impact: Customers want to know their efforts matter. Providing insights into individual and collective impact reinforces positive behaviors and encourages continued participation.

Uplight’s BDR Expertise

The numbers speak for themselves. Uplight currently manages 640 MW of BDR load across six programs, serving over 1.6 million customers worldwide. These aren’t small pilot programs—they’re full-scale implementations delivering measurable results.

Take Sonoma Clean Power, a community-choice aggregator serving 230,000 accounts in Northern California. Facing the need to cost-effectively mitigate peak load while ensuring equitable access across all customer segments, they implemented a BDR program that now delivers 2.4 MW of total load shed across approximately 7,000 participants. 

The potential to scale is even more impressive. One international utility’s opt-out residential BDR program shifted 144 MW during a single event in August 2024, engaging over one million customers through a points-based incentive system that customers can redeem for travel, food, and other rewards.

The Bottom Line

While automated and device-based demand response programs certainly have their place in the modern grid, BDR offers: a cost-effective, universally accessible, and rapidly deployable foundation for demand flexibility that complements rather than competes with other programs in your portfolio.

As utilities evaluate strategies to meet growing load requirements while maintaining grid reliability and customer satisfaction, consider BDR as a strategic tool that can help you engage broader customer segments, build trust in demand flexibility programs, and create pathways to more advanced offerings.

Meeting grid needs will require all available flexibility resources. BDR ensures that every customer—regardless of income, housing type, or technical sophistication—can be part of the solution.