ORIGINAL REPORTING: Details On New York’s Landmark Work To Value Customer-Sited Resources

How utility data sharing is helping the New York REV build the grid of the future; Making detailed grid data public can enable more clean resources and cut consumer costs. The REV docket shows how hard that can be.

Herman K. Trabish, Feb. 8, 2017 (Utility Dive)

Editor’s note: New York’s work on DER valuation is moving slowly toward the marketplace – but it is not there yet.

Designing the grid of the future requires utilities and technology providers to understand the grid of the present. New York’s work shows how optimizing DERs like rooftop solar and behind-the-meter storage requires a common understanding of the distribution system. But currently, only utilities have full access to the data needed to fully understand the system’s limits and potential, and even they often lack visibility to understand exactly where all their assets are located. New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) docket includes an effort to enhance and spread the knowledge of the utility grid in its distribution system planning proceeding. If stakeholders there can agree on a common approach, it could become a model to enhance grid planning and DER collaboration across the country.

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By collecting and sharing system data, utilities can indicate to DER providers where their technologies can add the most value to the grid and displace expensive traditional power system upgrades. DER providers, meanwhile, can access a larger consumer market and work with utilities to enhance consumer choice. In New York, the end goal is to amass enough accurate system data to allow real-time transactive energy marketplaces on the distribution system, similar to larger wholesale markets. The effort is still in its early stages, and both utilities and DER providers say there are a number of hurdles for regulators to address before the vision becomes a reality… click here for more

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