(The Center Square) – When it comes to the common good, regulators often work from the bottom up.
That is, preventing catastrophes like forest fires or environmental degradation from littering and pollution, the powers that be often ask taxpayers to do their part – manage campfires responsibly, don’t play with matches, recycle waste and be judicious when idling cars or using gas generators.
Now, the volatility of the power grid can rest in their hands, too, and maybe even some compensation. Enter distributed energy assets: community and rooftop solar panels, batteries, smart thermostats and heat pumps, and efficient usage strategies that can help limit pressure on the power grid, preventing price spikes and instability.
It’s a particularly pressing need as the nation takes on more demand than can be reasonably supplied, threatening to quadruple energy costs in some regions. From data centers to electrified transportation, aging grids once capable of managing “peaks” are struggling to do so, especially in the country’s largest of all: PJM, which manages power for 67 million people across the mid-Atlantic and Midwest.
Katherine Hamilton, acting executive director for Common Charge, likened the situation to churches that are built large enough to accommodate crowds on Christmas and Easter.
“Pews are not all full all year, right? Just those two days,” she told The Center Square. “And so, you think about the electric system that way, where it’s built for those really high peak days, and those are going to increase over time.”
And customers bear the brunt of those changes: higher prices and rolling blackouts have hit other parts of the country as natural disasters stress grid infrastructure. It’s not all bad news, though.
“There are very simple, very cost-effective tools that we can use, and being able to access our own data and actually benefit from it as a customer is going to be really important,” Hamilton said.
She pointed to a total solar eclipse in 2017 that passed over a wide swath of the country from coast to coast. Residents with programmable Nest thermostats received a text message to adjust the temperature as the solar power supply dropped off the grid, easing the strain by 750 megawatts, which is the amount used to power 500,000 homes.
“It absolutely saved the system as the eclipse went across the country,” Hamilton said. “It was really interesting to see how those things work.”
Then, there are more complicated ways in which distributed assets can play a role in strengthening the grid and keeping prices reasonable.
Rooftop solar panels, from those found in neighborhoods to larger-scale systems owned by Wal-Mart or on rented farmland, can combine with battery storage facilities to create “micro-grids.” And together, these resources can offer their supply to PJM and influence planning decisions, and ultimately prices.
Pennsylvania has long grappled with its role in growing energy demand and a power grid infrastructure that can’t keep up. As it becomes ground zero for data center development, the tension escalates. Most of the focus, however, has been on transmission and generation companies building and upgrading facilities faster to accommodate demand, rather than how demand can help supply.
In September, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, voted to accelerate efforts to identify and replace older plastic pipes in the state’s natural gas distribution systems, many dating back to the 1960s and 1970s. Promising options like pipeline repair and relining could minimize costs passed on to customers.
On the consumer side, Sarah Steinberg, managing director at Advanced Energy United, told The Center Square that smart thermostats, home batteries, and geothermal systems help households save by controlling when and how they use energy. Though they require upfront investment, these tools deliver long-term savings and reduce overall demand – one of the key drivers of higher prices. The challenge, she said, is ensuring they’re accessible and affordable.
While Pennsylvania’s lawmakers are considering bills on a variety of energy issues, none specifically address integrated energy planning or advanced transmission technologies. However, House Bill 705 would require electric distribution companies to coordinate on long-term grid infrastructure planning.
Steinberg said it’s all about making sure the right regulatory oversight and utility incentives are in place so companies can plan and deliver energy infrastructure efficiently and at the lowest cost. For policymakers focused on energy affordability, this approach offers a practical first step to curb unnecessary spending and prevent deepening the deficit.
Hamilton noted that the speed in which customer-side programs can get up and running are key.
“I think pretty quickly, you know, within months or a year, we could immediately have programs start that would have impact,” she said. “Whether it’s just a thermostat program to get started. And certainly, there are utilities that have done that to great success … I think the regulators giving customers access to their data is going to be really, really important so customers can understand how they make decisions and what they have at their fingertips already. So, I think we could have impact very quickly.”
