“The planning challenge is to determine how much of that flexibility can be made dependable, locationally useful, and economically comparable with conventional infrastructure.”

“Slaughter means that the age of independent federal regulatory agencies is essentially dead, and Donald Trump now wields more power than any President in history.”

“When we prevent a disruption, it means a patient on life support remains safe at home, a family can finish a meal together without interruption, and a household avoids spoiled food and damaged appliances.”

“Together, these improvements have increased our ability to manage a growing volume of concurrent developer submissions while maintaining the technical rigor required for reliable system planning.”

“APS views this as an ongoing evolution. Every event helps improve forecasting, response measurement, and operational readiness. The objective is to make our VPP as dependable and repeatable as any other grid management tool.”

PUF Executive Editor Rachel Bryant speaks with APS Director of Customer Grid Solutions Kerri Carnes, Eversource Manager of Transmission System Planning Clean Energy Integration Meiyan Li, LUMA ENERGY Program Manager for EVs and Demand Response David Cruz.

“Rather than viewing grid expansion and affordability as competing priorities, utilities increasingly have an opportunity to advance both simultaneously by extracting more value from the transmission assets already in service.”

“We’re working closely with utilities and stakeholders to identify places in the distribution system where upgrades will be high value. That is to increase the amount of distributed generation and storage on the grid and to improve reliability and access for high-load-demand customers.”

“Our legislature has put statutes in place that allow the utility to obtain pre-approval for significant energy resources. It’s not an absolute final approval, but it sets parameters, so they have more confidence in building infrastructure.”