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.
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Utilities ability to protect reliability in today s rapid transition to variable, distributed generation faces two key barriers and regulators help is needed to overcome them.
Advanced demand response (DR) can use the flexibility of customer-owned technologies to meet the balancing challenges of the changing supply mix, regulators and utility executives agreed during an Oct. 20 symposium hosted by The Brattle Group. Utility pilots are revealing what works, but also showing how technology and incentive structures are keeping flexible loads, such as customer-owned solar and smart thermostats, from supporting reliability. Load flexibility can shift energy use to when it costs less, shape energy use to match renewables availability, and to allow them to meet other system needs, said Minnesota Public Service Matt Schuerger during the symposium. And it can be a cost-effective solution for reliability by offsetting other investments in generation with lower-cost custom