IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2022 - 16

that DER solutions are technically feasible and that sufficient
time exists to issue requests for proposals.
To promote transparency, IOUs are also required to provide
assessment reports and publish their locational net benefits
analysis data, similar to integration capacity analysis
maps. IOUs have hosted and participated in workshop processes
to develop tools related to capacity and locational benefit
analyses. There also has been standardization in the state
for developing DER growth scenarios and load forecasts.
Colorado
The Energy Storage Procurement Act of 2018 required the
Colorado Public Utilities Commission to establish mechanisms
for the procurement of energy storage systems as part of
utility planning processes. The bill also increased the renewable
energy standard to 30% by 2020 for IOUs (i.e., Xcel
Energy and Black Hills Corporation). Legislation requiring
3% of all electricity sales to come from renewable distributed
generation by 2020, the Energy Storage Procurement Act, was
signed in 2018, directing the Public Utilities Commission to
establish mechanisms for the procurement of energy storage
systems as part of utilities' planning. Xcel Energy and Black
Hills also created a working group to analyze the benefits and
challenges of energy storage and other NWA technologies.
Connecticut
In June 2019, the Connecticut General Assembly energized
the rapidly growing energy storage market by enacting legislation
authorizing electric distribution utilities to own and
rate base wholesale storage generation assets for the first
time since industry restructuring was authorized, in 1998.
The law allows utilities to build, own, and operate unlimited
quantities of energy storage systems and automatically
recover prudently incurred costs from ratepayers. A senate
bill (SB 952) signed into law in June 2021 also establishes
a target of 1,000 MW of energy storage by the end of 2030.
In October 2019, the state's Public Utilities Regulatory
Authority (PURA) issued an interim decision (docket number
17-12-03) outlining PURA's framework for investigating
methods to achieve an equitable modern electric grid. Several
topics were identified for investigation in three phases
from 2019 through 2021. In June 2020, NWAs were investigated
as part of phase 3, whose objective was to establish a
transparent and competitive process for comparing potential
NWAs against traditional distribution system upgrades and
other utility expenses. In March 2021, Eversource, an IOU,
submitted its NWA screening process consisting of three
phases: 1) technology screening and approval, 2) one NWA
screening process per identified need (the company has an
in-house tool for this screening phase), and 3) vendor qualification
and NWA-based solution deployment.
District of Columbia
In December 2019, the Public Service Commission of the
District of Columbia passed an order to consider NWAs
to defer distribution substation projects. According to the
directive, the following factors are considered:
✔ the ability of NWAs to manage peaks caused by extreme
weather conditions and provide capacity during
rest of the year for transformers' N-1 contingency
scenarios
✔ the controllability and robustness of communications
for customer-owned storage resources
✔ safety considerations and standards (e.g., the fire
code) for deploying stationary energy storage systems,
particularly in densely populated urban locations.
No Activity
Investigations
Initiatives
Legislation
Legislation
Investigations
figure 1. The NWA activities in different states.
16
ieee power & energy magazine
Hawaii
Hawaiian Electric is pursuing integrated
grid planning that would
expand opportunities for resources,
grid services, and NWAs for the
transmission and distribution system.
The Hawaii Public Utility
Commission approved the plan in
March 2019, and a soft launch was
set to demonstrate the sourcing
and evaluation of NWAs the same
year. Hawaiian Electric was seeking
solutions, including aggregated
DERs, that could defer the expansion
of East Kapolei's (located in
Oahu) distribution capacity, which
was forecast to be impacted by
considerable load growth. The
sourcing was technology agnostic
and included behind- and front-ofthe-meter
solutions.
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