The Colorado Public Utilities Commission has ordered the Public Service Company of Colorado to promptly propose a “flexible interconnection or energization tariff” for distributed energy resources, as required by a state law enacted in 2024.
Flexible interconnection refers to approaches that optimize the use of existing grid infrastructure, the regulators said, by allowing developers to connect new load or generation projects in “constrained” locations that would otherwise require capacity upgrades.
By avoiding capacity upgrades, the option of flexible interconnection avoids costs for project developers that can make a project uneconomical.
California recently enabled distributed solar or storage projects to use flexible interconnection when the projects agree to abide by “limited generation profiles,” using hardware to flexibly control output. The profiles specify the maximum amount of electric generation a distributed energy resource system may export to the grid at different times throughout the year.
Colorado required PSCo, a subsidiary of the multi-state utility Xcel, to implement flexible interconnection using “static or scheduled export or load limits.” Regulators said that flexible interconnection does not require a utility distributed energy resource management system (DERMS).
PSCo’s proposal must conform to several recommendations made by three parties that filed jointly, namely the Solar Energy Industries Association, the Colorado Solar and Storage Association and the Coalition for Community Solar Access. Their recommendations included:
- A flexible interconnection stakeholder process
- Eligibility for community solar and storage projects
- Incorporation of best practices from other locales, including National Grid’s flexible interconnection pilot in New York, and the Illinois pilots by Commonwealth Edison and Ameren.
Colorado regulators did not include in their order to PSCo a recommendation from the trade group Advanced Energy United to expand the types of projects eligible for flexible interconnection beyond community solar, dispatchable distributed generation and large electric vehicle loads, to include heat pumps, behind-the-meter battery storage, residential rooftop PV, and buildings with smart electrical panels.
AEU said that enabling additional flexible interconnection applications would “increase flexible interconnection benefits to the grid, developers and ratepayers.”
While AEU favored adopting California’s limited generation profile approach to flexible interconnection, regulators did not specify which approach PSCo should use.
The Colorado law that requires an optional flexible interconnection tariff also requires qualifying utilities to develop at least one planning scenario that incorporates “load and managed generation flexibility that may increase system capacity utilization, reduce the need for system upgrades, and lower system costs,” the regulatory order said.
The Interstate Renewable Energy Council said in a post that the flexible interconnection requirements came as part of a broader proceeding addressing PSCo’s distribution system plans and virtual power plant program. IREC made recommendations in the proceeding related to PSCo’s hosting capacity analysis, which is intended to “help better inform siting of new projects by providing insights to help developers avoid heavily constrained areas of the grid and propose projects that are more likely to be economically viable.”
IREC said that the regulators required PSCo to “publish unredacted data” in its hosting capacity analysis “without requiring a non-disclosure agreement from users,” and also required “improvements in the granularity of data.”
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