Energy Commission Joins Distributed Energy Conference
California Energy Commission staff will be among the list of key speakers at the National Distributed Energy Future Conference in San Francisco, Nov. 2-3.
Mike Gravely, team leader for the Energy Commission’s Energy Systems Research Office, and Kevin Barker, advisor to Commission Chair Robert Weisenmiller, will join industry and government speakers highlighting distributed energy resource (DER) policy and technology developments.
DERs are small-scale power sources such as rooftop solar, energy management and energy storage systems that provide energy locally and can send power to the larger electric grid. They are a significant and growing tool in balancing regional supply and demand, managing peak power needs, increasing reliability and reducing ratepayer and utility costs.
They have been gaining in popularity as customers continue to look for cost-effective clean energy technologies to meet their energy needs. The Energy Commission, which has been involved in DER adoption for years, has begun assessing new DER innovations that will allow the integration of greater levels of renewable energy on the grid.
The Commission is a co-sponsor of the conference and will have an exhibit booth promoting DER-related projects it has funded such as a vehicle-to-grid demonstration at Los Angeles Air Force Base and an energy storage technology assessment being completed at Naval Base Ventura County (Port Hueneme). These projects support critical military missions while providing services to the electric grid.
The annual conference is hosted by the industry trade group More Than Smart and the U.S. Department of Energy. It brings together hundreds of policy experts, utility company representatives and distributed energy resource providers to discuss concepts for bringing new distributed energy resources to market and to examine ways to redesign the state’s distribution grid to better integrate renewable sources.
More information on the conference is available on the More Than Smart website.
