Utility Dive covers a panel session exploring ways to improve the planning process for grid modernization. AEE’s senior advisor Malcolm Woolf weighs in. See the full Utility Dive article here:

While utilities are in the best position to define problems with distributed resource integration, the planning process could better involve other stakeholders, Exelon's director of utility innovation, Susan Mora, said on a Wednesday panel about grid mod proceedings and distributed resource integration.

One potential avenue, which is being explored by Exelon subsidiary Potomac Electric Power (Pepco), is to create formal opportunities to involve developers and consumer communities earlier, Mora said. She shared her insights — based on PEPCO's involvement in the Washington, DC initiative Modernizing the Energy Delivery System for Increased Sustainability (MEDSIS) — at the 2019 National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) Energy Policy Outlook Conference.

Conversations with the utility outside of regulated dockets or state legislative proceedings could simplify grid modernization efforts, Malcolm Woolf, an advisor at the energy trade group Advanced Energy Economy, said on the panel. He suggested an off-the-record conversation without press, facilitated at the state level...

"A lot of these technologies provide multiple services and they don't have the bandwidth to engage in every single proceeding," Woolf, a former director in the Maryland Energy Administration, told Utility Dive...

During the panel, the Electric Power Research Institute presented its white-paper published last summer, "Developing a Framework for Integrated Energy Network Planning," about regional circumstances, opportunities and planning challenges across the country...

See the full Utility Dive article here.