This report documents the experiences of a set of electric companies in the United States that are performing coordinated planning activities across generation, transmission, distribution, and customer-sided resources. The transition to decarbonized energy systems will substantially transform the electric sector in the next few years, and companies are recognizing that a more integrated planning process may help guide planning more cost-effective and reliable power systems than planning individual parts of the system in isolation.
This report shows that applications of emerging integrated system planning processes are diverse across utilities. Their organizational structure, and market and regulatory environments influence the level of integration across departments and affiliated external organizations. This is particularly the case across planning functions, analytical tools, data environments and stakeholder engagement. For many utilities, integrated system planning is a new and evolving process. Companies are either implementing a process that is not yet mature, or they are engaging in preliminary discussions to delineate the nature of their collaborations.
Authors Karen Tapia-Ahumada and Nidhi R. Santen