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How Hunt Imaging Earns Easy Revenue With Demand Response

The Customer

Hunt Imaging is a dry toner chemical manufacturer in Berea, Ohio. Originally founded in Brooklyn in 1909, the company got its start in chemicals for the motion picture industry, but has evolved significantly over the past 111 years. The company now develops advanced new toners, carriers for high speed printers, and other innovative imaging products.

 

Location: Berea, Ohio

Industry: Manufacturing

DR Program:  PJM Emergency Load Response

 

Demand Response: An Easy Revenue Opportunity

As co-owner and CFO of Hunt Imaging, Michael Stanek is always looking for ways to earn more revenue. When he was introduced to demand response, he instantly knew this was a straightforward opportunity to impact the bottom-line for his company. In PJM demand response, large energy users are paid when they agree to reduce their energy demand during times of grid stress. True grid emergencies are rare in PJM, the energy region Hunt is located in—depending on the area, these events occur a handful of times a year or less.
 

Why Hunt Needed a Better Provider

Stanek immediately saw that DR was a good decision—but that Hunt had chosen the wrong partner to enroll their facility in the program. Stanek was disappointed by nearly every aspect of his first demand response provider.

 

“Almost everything was terrible,” Stanek said. “The communication was horrible, the transparency was non-existent—there was a secretive back-room feeling, and I never felt I was getting the full story. The reporting they gave me on my performance was absolutely abhorrent.

 

“Essentially every aspect with them was poor, other than the fact that they did get me my payments on a timely basis.”


 

The Benefits of the Enel X Experience

Eventually, Stanek decided he’d had enough and started looking for other demand response providers. He’s involved in a wide variety of different community boards and organizations, and one of those organizations is the Council of Small Enterprises (COSE), the small business expert organization of Northeast Ohio. The Vice President of Energy Services at COSE suggested to Stanek he explore Enel X, one of the oldest demand response providers in the world.

 

From the start, Stanek said, Enel X and Hunt Imaging was a much better partnership.

 

“Anyone who knows me knows I’ll tell you if something’s not right, but I give praise where it’s due,“ he said. “With Enel X, it’s been night and day compared to our previous provider.”

 

From Start to Finish, Enel X Has Delivered

Stanek said he’s been happy with nearly every step of the process with Enel X, right from the beginning:

  • Sales: “The sales process was great from the start—the Enel X salesperson was extremely thorough, explained things well and made them very clear. She provided comparisons and was very transparent, so that I was very comfortable with what Enel X was offering.”
  • Onboarding: “The onboarding was amazingly thorough—it took us through all parts of the website, which is a fabulous tool and offers us so much information at our fingertips.”
  • Meter Installation: “The third-party that came out and did the installation was super to work with.”
  • DR Preparedness: “The information I received prior to the demand response audit this year was timely and thorough, and the reminders and tips that were sent in emails beforehand were helpful. I was also astounded at how quickly performance data was relayed back to me—the information was given to me as it occurred, almost in real time.”
  • Customer Service: “It was fabulous to have all that information. We felt that we were being treated as a valued customer, and that Enel X was a true partner with us in the program.”

 

Participating in demand response has been simple for Hunt thus far. The company is well prepared for audits, and when they shut down, it has no major effect on operations. “The impact of the shutdowns for audits,” Stanek says, “has been nominal.”
 

Changing the Way They Think About Energy

Stanek says not only has Enel X come through on delivering a valuable demand response experience, there have been unforeseen benefits, too. Enel X provides real-time energy use data as part of its demand response program, and Stanek says they intend to leverage that more in the future.

“We’ve had the opportunity to utilize the online reporting that Enel X provides us to monitor our usage every day, not just in relation to demand response but for regular production challenges,” he said. “We’re still getting used to how to make the best use of that information, but we do value having it there so we can continue to use it for the benefit of our ongoing production needs.”