Brattle Experts Introduce New Framework for DER Value in the Speed-to-Power Era
As electricity demand accelerates – driven largely by data centers and other large loads – utilities, regulators, and customers face a growing challenge: how to connect new load quickly while maintaining reliability and supporting existing customers.
In a new whitepaper, “A New Framework for DER Value in the Speed-to-Power Era,” Brattle Managing Energy Associate Akhilesh Ramakrishnan and Principals Dr. Sanem Sergici and Dr. Peter Fox-Penner examine how distributed energy resources (DERs) can help address this challenge by creating system capacity headroom to enable faster interconnection of new load.
Traditionally, DERs have been valued for their ability to defer or avoid investments in generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure. The authors explain why that “deferral paradigm” remains important – but is no longer sufficient in regions where demand is outpacing grid expansion.
The paper introduces a complementary “speed-to-power” framework, which can be used to account for the value DERs provide by helping utilities serve new customers sooner. This shift has important implications for DER compensation, cost allocation, interconnection rules, and regulatory oversight.
The authors outline how a revamped DER value framework should be dynamic, locational, and tied to the specific grid service being provided – whether that service is deferring infrastructure, accelerating load connection, supporting reliability, or helping mitigate rate impacts for existing customers.
Read the full paper to learn more about how DERs can play a critical role in accelerating economically valuable load connections while preserving reliability, fairness, and core principles of utility regulation.
