'A total mindshift': Utilities replace gas peakers, 'old school' demand response with flexible DERs
Utility-customer cooperation can balance renewables' variability with flexibility without using "blunt" demand response or natural gas.
By: Herman K. Trabish
Utilities and their customers are learning how their cooperation can provide mutual benefits by using the flexibility of distributed energy resources (DER) to cost-effectively balance the dynamics of the new power system.
The future is in utilities investing in technologies to manage the growth of customer-owned DER and customers offering their DER as grid services, advocates for utilities and DER told a Jan. 25-28 conference on load flexibility strategies. And there is an emerging pattern of cooperation between utilities and customers based on the shared value they can obtain from reduced peak demand and system infrastructure costs, speakers said.