Full Title: The Transition to a High-DER Electricity System
Author(s): Fredrich (Fritz) Kahrl, Lorenzo Kristov, Josh Keeling, Priya Sreedharan, Matt McDonnell, Jennifer Gorman, Jason Brogden
Publisher(s): Energy Systems Integrations Group
Publication Date: August 15, 2022
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Distributed energy resources (DERs)—generation, storage, electric vehicles, and responsive load connected to the distribution system—have the potential to bring a range of benefits to the U.S. electricity system and the customers it serves: demand flexibility, lower greenhouse gas and criteria pollutant emissions, customer choice, competition, rapid innovation, cybersecurity, and enhanced reliability and resilience. Enabling DERs to provide these benefits will require ongoing and significant changes in multiple areas—DER interconnection, distribution and transmission planning, data access and communication, distribution system operations, utility regulation, tariffs, electricity markets— that better integrate DERs into electricity systems (referred to as “DER integration”).
This report proposes a national initiative to develop greater consistency and consensus around DER integration in the United States. The report outlines a possible design, process, and governance for a structured work effort that would address the three gaps described above. The report is intended to be useful for multiple audiences, including national-level organizations that may wish to integrate these elements into their ongoing efforts and stakeholders who may be participants in the national initiative.