Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has released an interactive decision framework to improve local and system-level grid planning. RyanJLane via Getty Images

Dive Brief:

• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has released a new interactive decision framework to improve local and system-level grid planning amid anticipated load growth, adoption of distributed energy resources and state requirements that utilities file distribution plans, the lab said Monday. 
• The framework builds on the Department of Energy Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability’s Modern Distribution Grid Project and aims to create a “shared understanding” among utilities, states and other stakeholders around longer-term distribution grid investments to ensure reliable, resilient and affordable electric service, Berkeley Lab said.
• “We need really sophisticated planning tools to be able to address all of these factors,” said Joe Paladino, senior advisor in the DOE’s Office of Electricity, which sponsored Berkeley Lab’s work on the tool.

Dive Insight:

Distribution grid planning is more complicated than it was a decade ago, when utility regulators in California, New York, Hawaii and a few other states began thinking about how to manage growing DER capacity, Paladino said. With DERs far more widespread today, “almost everybody has to figure out how they’ll integrate and utilize them [to] provide grid services,” he added. 

Those efforts coincide with other emergent considerations like maintaining grid reliability amid a changing generation mix, hardening transmission and distribution assets against increasingly extreme weather, and managing “incredible load growth” from data centers, electric vehicles and building electrification, Paladino said. 

Additionally, sophisticated distribution planning is crucial in jurisdictions that require utilities to file some form of distribution plan with regulators, said Lisa Schwartz, the Berkeley Lab senior energy policy researcher and strategic advisor who led the interactive decision framework’s development.

Nineteen states plus the District of Columbia have such requirements, according to Berkeley Lab. 

“Now, regulators and other stakeholders are seeing plans for capital investments in advance, rather than just on the back end in rate cases,” Schwartz said.

Against this backdrop, bulk transmission planning alone may not lead to “least-cost, least-risk solutions” for energy system investments, especially given the potential for increasing DER capacity to reduce the need for additional transmission, Schwartz said.

The Berkeley Lab framework supports integrated distribution system planning, which the lab calls “a systematic approach to satisfy customer service expectations and state and utility objectives for grid planning and design.” 

Integrated distribution system planning “is a stakeholder-informed decision-making process,” with states and utilities setting objectives upfront, stakeholders like consumer advocates and community organizations engaging with the planning process, and all parties then working toward the “best solution set” that meets their shared objectives, Schwartz said.

The framework includes modules relevant to system-level planning, such as “system forecast and scenarios” and “resource and transmission planning,” alongside distribution-related modules like “Granular Locational Forecasts and Scenario Analysis” and “Current Distribution Assessment.”

“The framework ties together what typically are disparate [planning] processes for bulk and distribution grid planning,” Schwartz said.

The Berkeley Lab framework is structured as an interactive flow chart with modules and sub-modules detailing aspects of energy system planning. Each module and sub-module features plain-language explanations of their place in the planning process, and most also include definitions of key terms and frequently asked questions. Some have additional sections with explanations of stakeholder roles and responsibilities at each step, relevant state and utility practices, process-specific flow charts and links to relevant non-DOE tools and resources.

DOE hopes the framework helps state regulators and utilities with less integrated distribution system planning experience ascend the learning curve “rather than try to reinvent the wheel,” Paladino said.

“What Lisa has developed here will be a powerful, powerful tool for decision-makers,” he said. “[DOE] can’t tell people what to do, but we can provide them with best practices.”