Technical Briefing | Grid Planning in Uncertainty

The U.S. Department of Energy hosted the first workshop in the Voices of Experience | Decarbonization Strategies and Grid Planning series on February 26, 2024, in Orlando, Florida, co-located with DistribuTECH. The goal was to provide an opportunity for the 70+ participants representing some 34 electric utilities to discuss their insights and challenges and to learn from each other as they plan for a decarbonized energy future.

Workshop Key Takeaways

1. The combined impacts of widespread electrification, the growing market for customer-owned generation and storage, and a trend pointing towards exponential growth in data centers, are making load forecasting increasingly complex.
2. A broad range of technology options is necessary and preferable to relying on a single (or a few) technologies, especially as utilities get closer to their decarbonization goals and face evolving conditions and tightening constraints.
3. “Fast, good or cheap — pick two.” is a business adage that is also known as the iron triangle. Electric utilities may soon be facing their own iron triangle of affordable, reliable, or clean, and must be able to discuss costs and rate impacts with stakeholders.
4. The interplay between market dynamics and regulatory frameworks is complex and especially challenging for utilities with service territories spanning multiple states. Vertically integrated utilities that control the entire service chain from generation to distribution often find decarbonization more manageable due to direct oversight of their generation resources.
5. Behind-the-meter resources are being considered and piloted by utilities; however, aggregating customer resources and relying on controls, dispatch, and interoperability is complex. Virtual power plants need more research and pilots to understand how they can be deployed at scale.

Authors

Jared Leader, Senior Director of Research and Industry Strategy, Resilience
Brittany Blair, Senior Analyst, Research and Industry Strategy
Sonja Berdahl, Project Lead, NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)