Rooftop solar and home batteries make a clean grid vastly more affordable

Rooftop solar, battery storage, electric vehicles, and energy management devices are all examples of DERs – numerous pockets of energy spread throughout the grid rather than concentrated in a single spot. Unlike centralized sources of power, DERs can make the grid flexible and enable control of both electricity supply and demand in real-time. Howev... See more

Importantly, DER deployment is rapidly increasing – according to Wood Mackenzie’s second annual U.S. DER Outlook, we’re expected to reach 253 GW of DER capacity and demand flexibility potential by 2026. The sheer mass of behind-the-meter renewable energy coming online will fundamentally alter the nature of our electricity supply.

To achieve clean energy targets, many jurisdictions will have to overbuild renewables, increasing curtailment, or wasting of renewable energy. LDES could reduce or eliminate curtailment, allowing renewables to produce at full capacity whenever the weather is aligned.

The future grid will be built from the bottom up, driven by new technologies, DERs, that are in many ways superior to their predecessors.

Electric lighting, for example, did not simply replace candles and oil lamps on a 1-to-1 basis, but instead opened up entirely new residential, commercial, industrial, artistic, and scientific applications. Refrigeration did not just replace ice boxes on a 1-to-1 basis, but instead found new applications ranging from air conditioning and dehumidifi... See more