California regulators are on the cusp of breaking open a long-awaited opportunity to enlist rooftop solar, behind-the-meter batteries and other distributed energy resources (DERs) to substitute for expensive grid upgrades. It’s called the Partnership Pilot , and according to DER developers, it could be a major step forward in a distribution resources plan effort that’s been underway in California since 2014 and is being duplicated under names like “distribution system planning” and “integrated distribution planning” in many other states.

The goal of these state-by-state efforts is to find ways for utilities, customers and third-party aggregators to capture the grid value of DERs. One clear opportunity is getting them to respond to utility signals to reduce peak loads on local grid circuits. Utilities have to build and upgrade power lines, transformers and other grid equipment to ensure they can support those peak loads, even when they may only arise for a few hours of the day during the hottest months of the year. DERs that can reliably shift loads in those hours could defer “wires” upgrades for years, or perhaps indefinitely, which is why they’re often called “non-wires alternatives,” or NWAs. But NWAs haven’t taken off as hoped. Regulated utilities, […]