After the Glendale City Council passed a city-wide goal of achieving 10% adoption of customer solar and storage technologies by 2027 and additional 100 MW peak dispatchable and peak load-reducing capacity, Glendale Water and Power (GWP), the municipal utility, enlisted E3 to help it devise a strategy to reach that goal equitably and cost-effectively. E3 employed the IDSM tool to assess the predicted adoption of distributed solar and storage according to several different scenarios with varying utility incentives and rate designs. The scenarios were evaluated not only on whether they reached the 10% target but also on their ability to attribute the benefits of DERs equitably among more than a dozen different customer segments. System-wide impacts on emissions, ratepayer impacts, and utility avoided costs were calculated with the outputs of the IDSM tool.

The balance between affordability and adoption impact is a careful consideration when selecting program portfolios to ensure equitable growth. IDSM modeling results enable the E3 team to reveal the feasibility of achieving the 10% adoption target through a strategic combination of robust community outreach, utility incentives, and a rate design that encourages adoption while also mitigating ratepayer impacts.

With a United States Trade and Development Agency, E3 supported Tata Power-DDL as it explored the regulatory and business cases for a broader set of distributed energy resources including electric vehicles, demand response, storage, and energy efficiency in India. E3’s support began with analyzing Tata Power-DDL’s system to understand 1) the cost-effectiveness of DER technologies from different perspectives in the benefit-cost analysis framework, 2) the optimal DER portfolio that maximizes the benefits for the entire system, and 3) the pathway to realize the optimal portfolio through proper incentive structures or other mechanisms.

The project developed least-cost DER portfolios under low, medium, and high scenarios. These scenarios were crafted based on varying levels of load forecast, distribution deferral values, and technology costs. For each scenario, the project employed the IDSM tool to first assess the cost-effectiveness of various DER technologies, including electric vehicles (EVs), efficient air conditioners (ACs), efficient fans, solar panels, and Demand Response (DR) programs. The IDSM tool then simulated customer adoption decision-making processes and the final adoption level. Based on E3’s analysis, Tata Power-DDL decided to focus on a subset of DER programs and identified two DER pilots for the beginning of a distributed energy transition roadmap: EV charging centers and the DR Hotspot Program.

Read the detailed project description.

Publications

• Regulatory and Business Case for Distributed Energy Resources in India: Phase 2

Working with the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), E3 supported the development of a new roadmap for New York to achieve the installation of at least 10 Gigawatts of distributed solar by 2030. The roadmap lays out a path that will expand renewable energy in New York, generating enough clean energy to power 700,000 additional homes, while also prioritizing an equitable expansion of New York’s distributed solar infrastructure. E3 contributed to the distributed solar framework by providing analysis that informed the plan’s policy recommendations. E3 developed a supply curve model for distributed solar projects in New York and used this model to evaluate program costs for different incentive program options. The analysis was used to inform the roadmap’s ultimate recommendation to extend the current NY-Sun Megawatt Block incentive program to help achieve the 10 GW target.

Read the detailed project description.