This Utility Dive opinion piece was written by AEE’s Coley Girouard, Associate, Public Utility Commission Program and Ryan Katofsky, Vice President, Industry Analysis. The piece examines how utilities and the DER industry can maximize the benefits of DERs to the system through distribution system planning. Link to the full article here.

Excerpts of the UD story are below: 

U.S. utilities invest over $20 billion per year replacing and modernizing their electricity distribution infrastructure. As the electricity system continues to evolve, making sure that this money continues to be invested wisely, especially at a time of growing deployment of distributed energy resources (DER), is prompting changes to how utilities conduct distribution system planning.

The distribution grid is the backbone of a reliable electric system used to deliver electricity from the transmission system to individual consumers. Modern planning processes are critical for providing essential electric service…

As DER deployment continues to grow, utilities and the DER industry are seeking ways to maximize the benefits of DERs to the system, while maintaining reliability and reasonable costs for customers.

In many states, utilities and DER providers are coming together to consider how DERs can be more fully integrated into the system, allowing utilities to take advantage of the benefits DERs can provide and optimizing distribution system planning and investments to account for and include DERs.

Complete UD story here.