Department of Market Monitoring: Demand Response Issues and Performance 2025 Report posted

The California ISO (ISO) Department of Market Monitoring (DMM) has published the Demand Response Issues and Performance 2025 Report providing analysis of demand response activity for balancing areas across the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM), and additional analysis of demand response used to meet resource adequacy requirements in the CAISO balancing area in summer 2025. The report can be found on the Reports and presentations webpage.

Across the Western Energy Imbalance Market, out-of-market demand response is reported on an hourly basis as a load adjustment to the forecasted demand used in either the market optimization or the resource sufficiency evaluation. In 2025, WEIM entities submitted load adjustments through both mechanisms in 81 distinct hours, with an average adjustment of -250 MW over those hours.

In the CAISO balancing area, demand response accounted for roughly 3.1 percent of total system resource adequacy capacity (or about 1,330 MW) in summer 2025, comparable to the 2.5 to 4 percent of total system resource adequacy capacity in the previous five summers. On days with strained grid conditions in the summer, about 77 percent of the demand response capacity in real-time reported performing as scheduled.

The report includes recommendations for improving the availability and performance of demand response resources. 

Information related to market monitoring is available on the Market Monitoring webpage.

Please contact Saigeetha Narasimhan at snarasimhan@caiso.com, or the Department of Market Monitoring at DMM@caiso.com with any questions.