MANAGEMENT UPDATE.

TAKING PRESSURE OFF THE GRID

“The need for energy in the United States is growing with the rise of artificial intelligence data centers, the expansion of domestic manufacturing, and the electrification of the transportation system,” according to a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts. This has led state legislatures to seek “innovative ways to alleviate pressure on the grid.”

One way to do that is through distributed energy resources (DERs). which help to reduce grid pressure. “DERs are energy generation and storage technologies such as rooftop solar, battery storage and smart appliances,” explains Pew, which has collaborated with the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center to develop a State Policy Explorer that inventories more than 400 DER-related state legislative actions enacted from 2021 through 2025.

Many of the policies employed by state lawmakers serve to promote the adoption of DERS. This includes compensating DER owners, as well as “offsetting the cost of installing these technologies,” reports Pew, which describes policies such as investment support and net metering “which is a mechanism for compensating customers who generate their own electricity and send excess energy back to the grid, often through rooftop solar.”

But the report notes that “states are increasingly looking beyond these foundational financial mechanisms and pursuing additional strategies to reach higher DER penetration and meet the growing energy demand.”

The strategies cited by Pew include efforts to: