Advanced Energy Perspectives

By now, it is no secret that distributed energy resources (DERs), including rooftop solar, energy storage, customer-owned generation, demand response, electric vehicles, and energy efficiency can save Texas billions of dollars over the coming years. A report published by Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance (TAEBA)  showed that DERs could deliver $5.47 billion of value over 10 years by prolonging the use of existing, functional utility infrastructure and by better integrating DERs into electricity markets. But the value of DERs is not just in the future. Rather, DERs are already providing Texas businesses and Texas residents with many benefits, including reliability, resilience, and cost savings. Read on for five examples of DERs currently at work in the Lone Star State.

In 1999, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 7, opening up the Lone Star State’s electricity market to competition. Since then, Texas has been at the forefront of energy innovation. Now, nearly 20 years later, distributed energy resources (DERs) are the cutting edge of energy innovation, continuing the two-decade process of making the Texas grid more secure, clean, reliable, and affordable. With the COVID-19 public health crisis changing where and how we use electricity, just as it has changed where we work and how we learn, DERs couldn’t have come along at a better time.