Peak Energy Agriculture Rewards (PEAR) is an electricity demand response program for agriculture customers. PEAR is a program offered by M2M Communications, an energy management company centered on developing web-to-wireless remote control systems. PEAR incorporates M2M’s proprietary Lodestar® system, which operates over cell phone and satellite communications networks. Lodestar devices are designed and deployed to control electrical agricultural service points to save time, money and energy. M2M is a duly registered demand response "aggregator" with both PG&E and Southern California Edison. PEAR incentives include cash payments for monthly performance in peak demand events and also a suite of remote monitoring and control equipment, which is free to qualified customers. This equipment not only controls on/off status, but also includes pump pressure and flow, and senors for air temperature, soil moisture, and other data [1].
