Supporting utilities along the energy transition and helping them achieve their decarbonization goals is top of mind as we celebrate Earth Day 2023 at Itron. This year’s theme, “Invest in Our Planet,” directly ties to Itron’s mission of creating a more resourceful world and our work with cities and utilities to integrate renewable energy and other distributed energy resources (DERs). In celebration of Earth Day, we’re taking a moment to reflect on the opportunities and challenges facing utilities as the adoption of clean energy makes the shift from encouraged to required and closely regulated in the years ahead. 

What Utilities Can Expect from the Energy Transition
As DERs and regulations surrounding their deployment continue to gain momentum, utilities are being forced to rethink how they procure power and operate the grid. Due to key advances in technology, the DER landscape is evolving rapidly in terms of price, performance and resulting adoption. Improvements in performance, coupled with a decrease in price, have led to exponential growth in DER adoption that is not expected to slow down any time soon.

Other considerations for utilities on the decarbonization journey include transportation electrification and the accelerating adoption of electric vehicles (EV). Although this presents revenue opportunities for utilities with the potential for terawatt hours of additional demand, the increase in EV charging is already having a large impact on the low- and medium-voltage distribution network. Physical assets, such as secondary distribution transformers, are projected to experience a decrease in expected service life, particularly those in residential neighborhoods. 

In addition to the ways DERs interact with the distribution grid, DER adoption also presents an opportunity for utilities to transform the utility-customer relationship. We know customer expectations are changing rapidly. DER adopters expect a service that is quick and easy to use, and they prefer an interactive response, with utilities acting as trusted advisors on not only how to pay their bill and set up an account, but also how to operate DERs, where to buy them, how to commission them and so on. Another significant change is the amount of control customers have. Program designs will have to change to accommodate a higher frequency of control and a move away from legacy demand-response relationships. 

Helping Utilities Connect, Analyze and Optimize DERs

With rapid integration of renewable and distributed energy technologies onto the grid, utilities are challenged with maintaining power quality, balancing supply and demand, and ensuring adequate distribution capacity. Itron brings the tools and expertise to help utilities do exactly that. 

Built upon the foundation of Itron’s IntelliSOURCE® distributed energy resource management system (DERMS), Itron’s DER Optimizer solution enables utilities to expand their legacy demand response programs to include a wide range of DERs, including electric vehicles, smart inverters, battery storage systems and other flexible loads. In turn, DER Optimizer’s real-time analytics and optimization engine allows utilities to strategically grow their program portfolio from traditional reliability programs to a wide range of DER-based grid services, including economic dispatch, non-wires alternatives, local grid balancing and microgrid use cases. Itron’s mission is to help utilities turn behind-the-meter DERs into valuable grid assets that deliver improved reliability, resiliency, customer engagement and sustainability.

In this rapidly changing cleaner energy world with accelerated decarbonization goals, the time for utilities to take action is now. We look forward to supporting our customers on the road to renewable energy today and every day in the years to come. Happy Earth Day!