IEEE Electrification - December 2021 - 53

Customer Criteria
The overall value proposition (of the
ISB), considering the tradeoffs associated
with making and receiving
payments and receiving enabling
technology (e.g., automation devices),
must generate positive, customer-perceived
value that includes
financial savings. Each element of
the service bundle should be
designed such that the service 1) is
easily understood by customers, 2)
has demonstrable perceived use
value, 3) has sufficient customer
demand, 4) is congruent with customer
willingness to pay, 5) does
not present an unacceptable level of
risk, and 6) is fair and transparent.
Building USES projects includes
customer market research to determine
whether there is sufficient
market demand among customers for ESaaS and grid services.
The service elements must also meet a series of regulatory
requirements.
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Figure 3. Customer willingness to participate in ESaaS for BTM and remote options (i.e., shared
energy storage option).
other DERs are willing to participate in and utilize USES
systems has revealed the following.
Across a range of adoption and program scenarios that
Regulatory Criteria
From a regulatory perspective, service elements must satisfy
a series of requirements, which include 1) compliance
with existing regulations; 2) responsiveness to local government
policy directions; 3) no returns that exceed an
allowed rate of return; 4) no unreasonable costs for ratepayers,
yet comprising a positive benefit-to-cost ratio;
5) no unreasonable risks for ratepayers; 6) usefulness and
helpfulness to fulfill resource adequacy and operational
needs; and 6) consistency with the overall resource plan.
Electric utilities must prove that these requirements are
met via a series of regulatory assessments and filings.
Utility Criteria
Utility criteria focus on operational and economic considerations.
At a minimum, the introduced system must not
generate unacceptable physical, cyber, or information
security risks. It is also important that they comply with
NERC's Critical Infrastructure Protection reliability standards
and do not generate unacceptable levels of project
cost recovery risk. It is essential that they provide a clear
and observable benefit to grid management and/or quality
and integrate effectively with both existing and future
enterprise systems.
Customer Market Research
As mentioned previously, executing USES projects should
include customer market research, which can be done
through conducting surveys and analyzing customers'
responses. A survey conducted by NV Energy to determine
whether customer and owners of BTM PV systems and
included options for utility-owned and managed BTM storage
and remote " virtual " storage, the survey validates that
monthly energy bill reduction is the top driver of DER adoption.
For the BTM configuration, when price and savings
were not specified, 58% of survey respondents said they
" definitely " or " probably " would participate in an ESaaS
offering. That level dropped to 39% when price and savings
were specified and there was no statistically significant difference
across either the price or savings levels tested.
For the remote configuration, when price and savings
were not specified, 23% of survey respondents said they
" definitely " or " probably " would participate. That level
increased to 32% when price was specified at US$25 per
month and further increased to 40% when price was
specified at US$15 per month. There was no statistically
PriceNot Specified
BTM Option
Remote Option
Price
Specified
Price: US$25
PerMonth
PriceNot
Specified
Price: US$15
PerMonth
38%
Low Income
62%
Multifamily
Figure 4. The willingness of multifamily and low-income customers
to participate in ESaaS.
IEEE Electrification Magazine / DECEMBER 2021
53

IEEE Electrification - December 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Electrification - December 2021