Distributed Energy Resources In The United States

Distributed energy resource (DER) is a general term to describe a number of technologies which function outside the traditional bulk power market structure. The prototypical examples of DERs include rooftop solar, stand-alone battery storage, fuel cells as back-up power, and electric vehicles (EVs).

Several factors are driving the uptake of DERs in the United States, requiring new laws, regulations and contractual structures to address new and emerging realities.

Context: issues with the power grids

Power grids in the United States were developed in a period when vertically integrated utilities were the norm, and most electricity generation occurred at power stations running on fossil fuels. Although the market liberalisation that is characteristic of modern wholesale power markets precedes the influx of renewable energy deployment over the past two decades, the introduction of intermittent wind and solar power at scale has exacerbated certain problems being