This report assessed a range of ways in which customers and electricity utilities might participate in a distributed energy market.
Report extract
- The ongoing uptake of Distributed Energy (DE) options such as solar PV, solar water heaters and energy efficiency are reducing electricity use and electricity utility revenues.
- This report proposes a regulatory framework that could form the basis of a DE market that would -cost energy services and enable the existing electricity industry are introduced into a well-established industry, they d DE is providing customers with a significant number of alternatives that allows them to actively participate in a system growing from the bottom up.
- To allow these two approaches to integrate requires a regulatory framework based on equal competition between supply-side and demand-side options at all levels (generation, networks and retail), for both network planning and during the day-to-day operations of the electricity market.
- Best practice Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) should become an integral component of network planning so that DE options can be used to decrease network expenditure. The proposed Regulatory Investment Test Distribution (RIT-D) is an embryonic form of IRP, but has significant scope for improvement.
