New Report Quantifies the Benefits of Expanding Distributed Energy Resources Throughout the United States
Adding significantly more DERs to the grid would avoid costs and reduce carbon emissions
Removing policy and regulatory barriers to the widespread deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs) such as rooftop solar, battery storage, managed EV charging, and smart thermostats could quadruple existing DER capacity and avoid $614 billion in U.S. power system costs through 2050.
That finding is one of the key takeaways from new research conducted by The Brattle Group, a global consulting firm with expertise in energy markets, for The Pew Charitable Trusts. The report, “The National Case for a More Distributed Power Grid: New Evidence on Affordability and Demand Growth,” was released Nov. 5.
The research builds on Pew’s DER policy playbook by examining the avoided costs, as well as the emissions reductions, that would result from enabling more DERs among residential, commercial, and industrial customers. The report shows that three key recommendations from the policy playbook—reforming local permitting processes, streamlining interconnection and grid access, and integrating DERs into distribution planning—could deliver 43% of the economic benefits associated with expanding DER deployment.
The report found that removing barriers to greater DER deployment could:
- Enable 4.5 times more DER capacity than currently exists in the U.S., adding more than 400 gigawatts (GW) by 2050.
- Cut roughly half of the projected increase in average household electricity bills, adjusted for inflation, by 2035.
- Reduce the potential cost of overinvesting in the grid by $33 billion, or roughly 40%, between 2030 and 2040 if anticipated load growth does not fully materialize.
- Avoid roughly 70 GW of new natural gas generation, a 22% reduction that is equivalent to the capacity of approximately 175 natural gas-fired power plants.
- Decrease cumulative power-sector carbon dioxide emissions through 2050 by an estimated 3%, or roughly 863 million metric tons.
- Lower the cost of achieving a carbon-free power system by offsetting approximately 175 GW of utility-scale capacity and lower annual generation costs in 2050 by $45 billion.
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