ROSEMEAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Southern California Edison (SCE) today filed its Distribution Resources Plan (DRP) with the California Public Utilities Commission. The filing is the next step in a proceeding the commission initiated last August to move toward full integration of Distributed Energy Resources (such as rooftop solar, storage, electric vehicle charging, energy efficiency and demand response) in operations, investment and distribution system planning.
In the past, SCE produced or bought power from large, centralized power sources and delivered it to customers — only requiring a “one-way road.” In the future, the electric distribution system will deliver power from many sources, including from customers. This means power flows back from customers to the distribution system at times, requiring a “two-way road”.
This “two-way road” could come with traffic congestion that will increase without an upgraded grid. The Distributed Resources Plan provides a road map to address this issue. SCE’s filing includes five key guiding principles in planning, creating and operating the power network of tomorrow:
- Ensure safety, reliability and resilience;
- Promote customer choice of new technologies;
- Reduce greenhouse gases;
- Provide affordable and equitable costs of electric service; and
- Use competitive processes for procuring clean-energy resources
“As more customers adopt clean-energy technologies like solar panels and energy storage equipment in their homes and businesses, the grid will become much more complicated to operate,” said SCE President Pedro Pizarro. “The DRP is our game plan to build a state-of-the-art power network that is essential to assure reliability, power quality, customer choice of new technologies and to further reduce greenhouse gases.”
SCE’s filing also includes the company’s proposal to address the following commission requirements:
- Evaluating the ability of the distribution system to integrate Distributed Energy Resources and development of tools to analyze the value of locations for those resources.
- Development of demonstration projects.
- Provision of data access.
- Assessment of tariff and contract implications.
- Identification of safety considerations.
- Description of barriers to deployment of Distributed Energy Resources.
- Coordination of the DRP with SCE’s general rate case.
- Phasing of next steps.
The company’s plan addresses all these requirements and proposes other sweeping changes to the way it operates, while maintaining a resilient, reliable and low-carbon power network that offers customers a choice in how they consume and produce energy.
“We’re moving toward a ‘plug-and-play’ system,” said Pizarro. “The coming power network will make it easier for customers to plug in many types of energy technologies, whether it’s an electric vehicle, solar panels or energy storage devices.”
About Southern California Edison
An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California Edison is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, serving a population of nearly 14 million via 5 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and Southern California.
