Electric companies, industry stakeholders, and regulators are placing increasing emphasis on accurately representing distributed energy resources (DER) in electric company long-term resource planning efforts. While there is substantial literature on the qualitative advantages and disadvantages of distributed energy resource modeling methods, there has been little research that quantitatively assesses implications across methods. This study quantitatively demonstrated the impact of a variety of approaches to representing energy efficiency (EE) and demand response (DR) in electric company resource planning modeling and analysis. Overall, a comparison of resource planning modeling simulations showed there are conditions under which certain approaches may be more appropriate than others for integrated resource planning. Resource planners can use the results and insights developed to assist them in deciding upon EE and DR modeling approaches for their own resource planning. Results also can be used by other industry stakeholders to analyze resource plans in a more informed way.
Authors Adam Diamant