ORIGINAL REPORTING: How Distributed Resources Offer Challenges And Opportunities For Utility 2.0

From theory to practice: The challenges in moving to 'Utility 2.0'; Utility execs discuss the trials and tribulations of putting more DERs on the grid

Herman K. Trabish, October 27, 2015 (Utility Dive)

Utilities and their regulators continue to look for ways to make new smart grid technologies, microgrid projects and storage pilots scalable and profitable and learn from one another’s efforts. From four years of operating the 2 MW sodium sulfur (NaS) Vaca Dixon battery system on the California grid, Pacific Gas and Electric has expanded its perspective on how to make energy storage cost-effective. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is studying how behind-the-meter batteries and other efficiency measures at its 2500 R Midtown project. Each of the 34 single family homes is designed to consume zero net energy and zero peak energy.

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New York’s Consolidated Edison’s Brooklyn-Queens Demand Management demonstrated how distributed energy resources (DER) can save utilities money by replacing a $1.2-1.3 billion distribution system infrastructure upgrade with a $200 million investment in DER. From Southern California Edison (SCE) planning at the transmission level for loads and resources, it came to understand DER as a potential source of both increased and decreased load. It is now studying its distribution system to identify precisely where enhanced local value opportunities like Con Ed found for the Brookly-Queens project are… click here for more

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