PV Magazine summarized findings from TAEBA’s distributed energy resources report, quoting TAEBA's Suzanne Bertin. Read excerpts below and the entire PV Magazine piece here. 

An estimated 20% of transmission and distribution investments in Texas are designed to meet load growth, and could largely be deferred by adding distributed battery storage. That’s a key finding of a report from the Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance (TAEBA), which pegged the annual savings possible in Texas from this “non-wires solution” at $344 million per year. 

“Customers would save substantially if non-wires solutions were explicitly considered as competitive options compared to traditional infrastructure build-out,” said Suzanne Bertin, TAEBA’s managing director, in testimony to the Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce in February.

Bertin publicized the TAEBA study and her testimony in a recent post co-authored by Claire Alford, a policy associate with the national clean energy group Advanced Energy Economy. The report, prepared by Demand Side Analytics, also showed that 1,000 MW of distributed storage could reduce electricity costs for Texas consumers by more than $300 million per year. While the analysis of transmission and distribution (T&D) deferrals referred to distributed energy resources (DERs) generally, and did not specify what type of DERs could effectively defer T&D expenditures, another part of the report referred to DERs that could meet peak demands on late afternoons in the summer and on winter mornings — both of which storage could do. Bertin’s testimony also focused on storage, including storage that could be made available to the grid by electric vehicles...

While the analysis of transmission and distribution (T&D) deferrals referred to distributed energy resources (DERs) generally, and did not specify what type of DERs could effectively defer T&D expenditures, another part of the report referred to DERs that could meet peak demands on late afternoons in the summer and on winter mornings — both of which storage could do. Bertin’s testimony also focused on storage, including storage that could be made available to the grid by electric vehicles...

A bill to create opportunities for utilities to contract for battery-based “non-wires solutions” to defer T&D buildout passed the Texas State Senate unanimously last year, said TAEBA’s Bertin in her testimony. The bill also passed a State House committee, but “time ran out” before the full House could vote on the bill, she said. The TAEBA report is titled “The value of integrating distributed energy resources in Texas.” The report shows 25 businesses as members of the association...

Read the entire PV Magazine piece here.