Markets

The value of distributed energy resources (DERs) stands at a crossroads as energy markets, regulations, and technologies evolve and customer and grid value streams emerge. This rapid and variable evolution across regions requires a tailored, nuanced approach to assessing the value stack and creating new opportunities for integration and deployment. Technological advancements, cost reductions, and market incentives are enhancing each DER’s ability to provide grid services and increase customer value. There are still questions that remain unanswered, and a fair amount of effort is underway to identify the potential and ascribe value to the various benefits that load flexibility offers.

“The need to capture the full value of DERs is becoming more acute and essential to scale load flexibility.

I am excited to be a part of the conversation to advance the industry’s ability to value DERs. There is need for conversations aimed at answering this complex question by identifying benefits that aren’t being captured, prioritizing them, and discussing the path forward for valuing them as an industry.”

Solutions and Programs

The rapid adoption of enabling technologies and electrification trends opens the doors for a wide range of programs and solutions capable of achieving demand flexibility and delivering grid services, environmental, and customer benefits. VPPs show tremendous promise as an alternative to traditional power plans. However, VPP’s ability to harness the maximum value is critically dependent on the ability to integrate the various DERs and solutions and orchestrate their deployment, while being able to accurately measure and attribute the benefits across the portfolio. This requires careful planning, design, testing, and measurement frameworks.

“We are lucky to work with clients at the cutting edge of DER deployment and integration and provide strategic guidance on the best ways to structure flexible load portfolios and VPPs of the future.

As DER interactions grow more complex and nuanced, those who proactively approach planning, testing, structuring deployment, and developing appropriate measurement frameworks will be able to reap the maximum value from DERs’ demand flexibility. There are many ways to design an effective flexible load portfolio, and in our work we find that intentional design, early evaluability assessment, thoughtful optimization design, and continuous measurement are critical building bocks toward enabling high impact piloting and effective roadmap to scaling.”

Customer

Technological advances and program offerings continue to multiply at a quick pace in the demand flexibility space – however, none of that matters if customers aren’t willing to come along for the ride! Thus, successful customer engagement is critical to meeting our lofty demand flexibility goals. Especially in the residential sector, US customer participation in flexible load programs and solutions has been historically low. With about 10% of residential customers enrolled in time varying rates or demand response programs, utilities across the country are not only looking to increase customer participation but also to engage the RIGHT customers while being mindful of bill affordability and customer comfort.

“I remember when we used to call customers “rate payers.” Now I’m hearing customers being referred to as a resource. Despite their immense demand flexibility potential, we cannot forget that there are humans living behind those meters and DERs. The ability to unlock demand flexibility’s full potential requires a deeper understanding of customer motivations, barriers, and opportunities for behavior change. With a strong foundation in customer research, we understand the nuance of customer attitudes and decision-making processes, as well as their impact on DER adoption and flexibility. We take a customer-centric approach to all our work, advancing new thinking about engaging nonparticipants in flexible load solutions by developing theoretical engagement pathways and testing them with empirical data.”

Insights Highlighted

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Connect with Danielle Fulmer and Jordan Folks to learn more about the best ways to curate Successful Customer Demand Flexibility engagement and Experiences.

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