rulemaking; 13 DER deployment in disadvantaged communities; 14 Accounting for the GHG reduction benefits of DERs; 15 What grid modernization functions need to be deployed to support full DER integration; 16 Establishment of safety standards; 17 Data access and confidentiality issues, to the extent they are not resolved in Track 1 with respect to the LNBA and Interconnection Agreement methodologies; 18 Appropriate growth scenarios and/or forecasts for analysis of DER deployment; 19 Consideration of and need for optimized portfolios of DERs; 20 Whether and when to require periodic updates to utility distribution resource plans; 21 Relationship to utility general rate cases (GRCs); and 22 Integration of DRPs into utility distribution infrastructure planning and investment. The Assigned Commissioner and Administrative Law Judge Rulings On August 9, 2016, an Assigned Commissioner’s Ruling on Track 3 Issues (August 9, 2016 ACR) was issued and invited party comments on the Commissioner’s proposal to divide Track 3 into subtracks and streamline the number of items each subtrack would address: 1. Subtrack 1: DER Adoption and Distribution Load Forecasting (items 8, 9, and 18). In this track, the parties will consider the need to forecast DER adoption and loads at various levels of distribution system disaggregation; methodologies and data sources for distributionlevel forecasting; and coordination with ongoing forecasting activities in the IEPR, LTPP, TPP, and any other applicable demand forecasts in determining the DER growth
a DER solution. Forecast Certainty, on the other hand, could be approximated by many combinations of the IOUs’ metrics employed in the IDER Incentives Pilot: Table 4. IOU prioritization metrics from IDER Incentives Pilot related to Forecast Certainty Utility Metric High Priority Low Priority PG&E Number of customers causing need Many Few Project need (absolute and percent) Large Small Timing of need Nearterm Longterm SCE Project timing certainty Nearerterm needs; less historical volatility with load growth driving project need and required inservice date Longerterm needs; more historical volatility with load growth driving project need and required inservice date SDG&E Weather factor adjustment Average weather factors applied to the circuit or substation compared to overall system Aboveaverage weather factors applied to the substation or circuit compared to overall system Customerspecific development Customer submittals for new or additional load External reports of possible new developments
Customer growth Multiple customer requests for new load, ground breaking ceremonies, and load materializing No submittals for future load additions Historical Load Forecast peak represents a relatively minimal increase or decrease from recent years’ recorded peak Forecast peak represents a relatively significant increase from recent years’ recorded peak With regards to the Market Assessment metric, the IOUs deployed the following approaches in the IDER Incentives Pilot in order to approximate the DER market opportunity associated with candidate deferral projects: Table 5. IOU prioritization metrics from IDER Incentives Pilot related to DER Market Assessment Utility Metric High Priority Low Priority PG&E Number of customers causing need Many Few Ratio of projected need to customers/load on circuit/bank Small Large Timing of need Longterm Nearterm
SCE Market assessment (customer composition) Broad base of large customers contributing to peak load (requires engaging relative fewer customers to meet distribution need) Minimal number of large customers contributing to peak load, or highly residential customer base (requires engaging many customers to meet distribution need) Distribution topology (number of customers) Projects that solve substation needs provides a larger number of customers to potentially enroll in DER programs Projects that solve specific circuit needs provides a smaller number of customers to potentially enroll in DER programs SDG&E Peak duration Applicable peak is relatively constant over a given amount of time Applicable peak is relatively spikey and/or concentrated to a limited time frame Customer profile mix Relatively homogenous mix of customer classes on the circuit Relatively diverse mix of customer classes on the circuit Peak timeframe Peak allows for any DER technology to mitigate Peak limits DER technology options to mitigate