This article was originally published in PV Magazine. We’re running out of time to transition our electric grid to clean energy sources at the pace needed to meet climate goals; it’s time to rethink the way states approach interconnection or…
DERs 
Interconnection Is Broken: Radical Rethinking Is Needed to Achieve Clean Energy Goals
New Project Will Provide Training on Distributed Energy Technologies for Building, Safety Officials
IREC and partners today announced the launch of a three-year, $2.1 million project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), to reduce barriers to widespread adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs) by…
CPUC Ruling Improves a Key Grid Transparency Tool for Siting Renewables, Energy Storage
San Francisco, California—On Wednesday, January 27, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered several key improvements to the Integration Capacity Analysis, a valuable grid transparency tool. IREC, which filed the Motion requesting the changes adopted in this ruling, commends the Commission…
Tagged with: clean energy, DERs, electric vehicles, energy storage, HCA, hosting capacity analysis, ica, Integration Capacity Analysis, solar
Overcoming the Barriers to Energy Storage Interconnection
New DOE-funded Project Will Develop Solutions to the Challenges of Storage Interconnection This article was originally published by North American Clean Energy. The energy storage industry has advanced rapidly, demonstrating the critical role storage technologies have to play in enabling…
Tagged with: batries, clean energy, DERs, distributed energy, energy, energy storage, grid, interconnection, project, Renewable Energy, solar, solar-plus-storage
Nevada’s latest step for consumer-driven clean energy: distribution resource planning reforms
Nevada is one of a handful of states to adopt legislation directing its public service commission and regulated investor-owned utility to initiate a comprehensive distribution resource planning (DRP) reform effort.
What Grid Transparency Looks Like
With little fanfare or attention, the main investor-owned utilities in California released their first Integration Capacity Analyses (ICA) and supporting distribution system maps at the beginning of 2019. IREC has done an in-depth exploration of the capabilities of the maps and advocated for ongoing improvements, encouraging the commission to establish a process for ensuring the utilities remedied both the data quality and usability issues.
New Primer Helps Regulators, Stakeholders Adopt New IEEE Standard for Distributed Energy Resources
IREC’s recently published Making the Grid Smarter: State Primer on Adopting the New IEEE Standard 1547™-2018 for Distributed Energy Resources will help states, regulators and other stakeholders navigate the related technical and policy issues they will need to address in the next few years.
