Podcast

The journey to monetizing distributed energy resources

Customers are adopting DERs, but cumbersome rules are hampering more widespread deployment.

On the Catalyst with Shayle Kann podcast this week:

Here’s the dream: millions of controllable devices — from EV chargers to thermostats, fridges and batteries — all working together to inject power back into the grid. They can reduce load when there’s not enough electricity supply to meet demand. They can ease transmission congestion and maintain grid frequency. And these devices, collectively called distributed energy resources or DERs, are all controlled remotely by grid operators. 

So how far are we from this dream? 

In this episode, Shayle talks to Mathew Sachs, senior vice president for strategic planning and business development at CPower, a company that aggregates DERs and sells DER services to the grid. They talk about where we are on the long and winding path to large-scale deployment of DERs and what it takes to monetize them. They dig in on topics including: 

  • EV chargers, the fastest growing category of DERs, as well as smart charging (V1G) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G)

  • How much easier it is to share your financial data for a credit check than to share your energy data with a DER aggregator

  • How current rules create obstacles to monetizing DERs

  • Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order 2222 and the status of new DER rules in the territories of the New York and California independent system operators

  • Positive developments such as the declining costs of DERs and rising watts per customer acquired

Recommended resources:

  • Canary: FERC Order 2222: Experts offer cheers and jeers for first round of filings

  • Canary: Is vehicle-to-everything charging ready for prime time?

  • Catalyst: Tapping the gold mine of consumer energy data

Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.

Transcript available here.

Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you’re a startup, investor, enterprise or innovation ecosystem that’s creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.