Nearly three years ago, we took an in-depth look at how utilities, consumers, and regulators viewed the impact of the rapid proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs) on the grid and utility operations. The survey and subsequent report, Keeping the Lights On1, revealed that while utilities and regulators understood that customer interest in solar, wind, energy storage, and electric vehicles was significant and rising, the actual adoption of DERs was still limited. We recently returned to the market to follow up on how the distributed energy future is unfolding. This most recent survey, Planning for a Distributed Energy Future, reflects the continued deployment of DERs since the release of the last report: 92 percent of utility respondents now say they have DERs on their system, up from 80 percent in the last survey.
Overall, this survey found utilities are taking steps toward a decentralized energy future, but are not always proactively developing and investing in the services and digital systems needed to accommodate the increasing penetration of DERs. The failure to be proactive exposes utilities to risk. Given the multi-year planning efforts of utilities, many are hitting or approaching a tipping point where they will need a flexible, yet detailed, roadmap to guide the development of systems and processes necessary to accommodate and support DERs. By not proactively developing the systems and processes needed to accommodate growing demand for DERs, utilities take the risk that large and small customers alike might completely bypass the utility grid in favor of selfgeneration, with or without utility backup service.
