Report: Local Power Could Save Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia More Than $3 Billion a Year by 2030
Local power in homes, businesses and neighborhoods can meet part of the new demand coming to Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia at a lower cost than new power plants and grid capacity. In its new report, "DER Potential to Address Load Growth in Michigan, North Carolina, & Virginia," Current Energy Group modeled how much each state could save and how much local power it would take.
Savings and scale by state
What the report recommends
The report identify five priorities for regulators and utilities:
- Price signals. Pay local resources for the specific services they provide, hour by hour.
- Cost allocation. Treat customers who send power to the grid fairly, and replace unpredictable upfront interconnection costs with ongoing charges for using the system.
- Planning. Plan for the distribution grid, generation and local resources together, and coordinate with gas planning.
- Utility incentives. Reward utilities for results through performance-based regulation, and open procurement to all resources.
- Regulatory framework. Set interim targets, tie approval of conventional resources to progress on local power, ask large new loads to help fund it, and remove barriers to participation.
About the report
Common Charge shares this report as a resource. The analysis and opinions are those of Current Energy Group.