IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2020 - 67

term will be balancing the accurate accounting for cost of
service and meeting customer expectations of choice and
flexibility in rates.
If we asked utility professionals 10 years ago what they
expected rates to look like today, TOU and other innovative
rates would have been much more prevalent than what is currently in use. Innovative rates like TOU, critical peak pricing, peak-time rebates, and even residential demand rates
were the answer for truing up cost of service with customer
demand in real time. Although there is still talk about mandatory TOU pricing in some jurisdictions, the actual number of customers on these innovative rates continues to lag
behind the deployment of AMI meters in the United States,
in large part because they are often perceived as confusing,
scary, or punitive to the consumer. The big challenge here is
offering customers choices while accurately and equitably
allocating costs. Ultimately, economic efficiency requires
having all customers, especially those cross subsidized by
others, on a time-varying rate. This issue will continue to
plague rate designers, who will need data and analytical support from load researchers well into the future.

Assessing Emerging Technologies
The advent of new technologies will continue to present challenges to the utility industry. A well-known one is
behind-the-meter solar generation. There are many issues
that arise with increased customer generation on a grid that
was designed for one-way delivery of power, but the load
researcher's primary concern will be with the measurement
of customer load and generation. This presents a challenge,
as the actual customer energy use and load shape are a mystery. The utility must deliver power, but the demand for
power varies not only based on customer usage, as it always

has, but also on customer generation. To complicate matters,
solar generation can be volatile. With more and more PVs
being installed, the accurate measuring and forecasting of
customer PV generation is crucial to maintaining the stability of the electric grid.
Today, localized battery storage is expanding its footprint. As an example, the Glasgow Electric Plant Board
installed smart battery systems at 165 households in 2016
as part of a virtual power plant assessment. The battery
systems were charged during off-peak hours using grid
energy. During demand-response events, a discharge
command was issued to partially or fully carry the site's
load. The battery system also served as an uninterruptible
power supply that provides power to the home within milliseconds of a power outage. Figure 2 presents the impacts
on a July event day when the batteries were charged during the early morning hours and discharged during the onpeak period.
Another example is the electrification of the transportation industry. EVs are being viewed as both an opportunity
and a challenge by the electric utility industry. EVs will certainly increase electricity sales but they will also have a significant impact on the distribution network, from the sizing
of local transformers to the build-out of a dc fast-charging
infrastructure. As consumer confidence and the EV range
extends, the popularity of EVs and the energy use per EV
will increase. An important element for utility planning and
a challenge for the load research community is the development of a realistic and diversified load profile representing
the current and future state of EV utilization.
In a 2016 project at Dominion Energy, data loggers were
installed on in-home chargers to collect direct usage data
from the EV charging station. The charging stations were

26 July 2016
4
3.5

kW Per Customer

System Peak Hour
T1: Treatment Group
C1: Comparison Group

2.5
2
1.5 Battery Charge

VPP Impact

1
0.5
-

(a)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Hour Ending
(b)

figure 2. The residential grid-side battery storage impacts: (a) the storage battery and (b) the results of the impacts when
the batteries were charged in the early morning and discharged during the on-peak period. VPP: virtual power plant.
may/june 2020

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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2020

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