Strategy & Planning

“The distribution system needs communication and management systems to provide a greater understanding of what’s happening on the distribution grid as large and small customers are installing more distributed energy resources. With this, utilities can better manage peak demands and ensure reliability.”

“The most important concern is how we can address present risks, as well as tackle electrification requirements of the future.”

“Pennsylvania passed legislation allowing for alternative ratemaking, which allows utilities the option to utilize time-of-use, incentive, multi-year, decoupled, and other distribution rate designs. We haven’t had significant applications of these designs yet, but the tools are in the toolbox.”

“I think about the potential for increased reserve margins for utilities due to extreme weather, the impact of economic development decisions, as well as potential load growth from electrification of the motor vehicle fleet. With all that demand coming onto the grid in the near and long term, it gives me concerns. The grid is going to be challenged.”

Like the space program, the drive to decarbonize is encountering many unsolved problems. Each has the potential to prevent a smooth landing.

The challenge is to modernize these systems without imposing undue costs on consumers, balancing fiscal responsibility with the imperative for technological advancement.

While these revenue stabilization mechanisms mitigate specific risks, they also require monitoring and calibration – they are not to be set and forgotten.

"We ask our project managers to first understand why business diversity is important, then to understand that we will need to subcontract our typical engineering services that we provide. Those are two new ways of thinking for our employee-owners."

FERC Order 881 was the subject of discussion at a recent IEEE Power & Energy Society T&D Conference, which was attended by POWER Engineers’ Lisa Deppa. She explains here the latest on Order 881 and why it is important to the decarbonization journey.

"We learned that through immediate and accelerated investments in demand-side solutions, we can offset about a third of the incremental costs of full grid decarbonization, saving approximately $107 billion annually by 2050."