Updates from SEPA
Regardless of all the distractions 2020 has thrown at us, the need to decarbonize our energy system remains stronger than ever. That is evidenced by the continued increase in the number of U.S. utilities that have made commitments to carbon-free or net-zero targets in recent months, including National Grid, Ameren Corporation, and Entergy Corporation.
Remember to visit our Utility Carbon Reduction Tracker often to stay abreast of the latest developments and the cumulative impact.
New Perspectives at the SEPA Table
As we prepare to enter 2021, SEPA has announced four new additions to our board, notably including representatives from leading global technology firms and large energy consumers Google, Microsoft and Amazon, in addition to energy storage pioneer sonnen. Having these organizations join the SEPA board highlights the importance of the transition to a carbon-free system to not only utilities and their customers, but also to the advanced technology community. View the press release to learn more.
Recent Grid Integration and Transportation Electrification Content
Highlighting the importance of new technologies not only on the grid itself, but also on utility planning processes and organizations, we recently released Integrated Distribution Planning - A Framework for the Future. This groundbreaking work outlines a roadmap for the transition from traditional distribution planning to integrated planning, and includes an exploration of the potential barriers and challenges to the transition.
As utilities ramp up their efforts on EV charging infrastructure deployment, a key challenge is the identification of appropriate communications architectures and protocols to facilitate system management and monitoring. SEPA published Guidelines for Selecting a Communications Protocol for Vehicle-Grid Integration to help members define a process for selecting protocols, and also to understand the importance of open standards.
Microgrids are becoming more important to utilities and their customers to help accommodate needs for resiliency as well as increased distributed resources. One challenge is how to create tariffs for multi-user microgrids? SEPA released How to Design Multi-User Microgrid Tariffs to address this issue.
Other Resources
Please bookmark sepapower.org and consider us your first stop when thinking about carbon reduction, clean energy and a modern grid. Check out more of our recent work in the Knowledge Center, as well as recent video series on SEPA TV.
Thank you for your continued clean energy and carbon-reduction efforts, as well as your continued engagement in SEPA.