As a Community Choice Agency (CCA), MCE knows that distributed energy resources (DERs) can unlock significant value for our organizations and our customers. But what are the best practices for designing DER programs that maximize financial benefits, increase power reliability by providing backup power, intermittency solutions and system load balancing, and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions?

MCE will soon release NavigaDER, an analytical software tool funded by the California Energy Commission. The tool helps CCA program and procurement staff determine which DER technologies to deploy to maximize value.

Here’s how NavigaDER streamlines DER program development and deployment:

 

  • Evaluate customer load data. NavigaDER helps CCAs better understand our data. A user can upload various types of customer information, and the tool helps you assess your options for various DER program scenarios.

 

  • Simulate DER program scenarios. If your CCA is considering a new DER program, use NavigaDER to model program scenarios and see the impact on your customers. You can design a new scenario by using various program parameters, such as technology type, configuration, and strategy. MCE’s test case involves battery energy storage for existing Net Energy Metering (NEM) customers with configurations for power rating, duration, and round-trip efficiency of the batteries. The strategy focuses on specific battery charge and discharge schedules. With NavigaDER you can create your own program scenarios and see the impact it makes for your customers.

 

  • Calculate the impacts on an individual customer and a program-wide basis. NavigaDER helps you asses the impacts of your simulated program. You can calculate the results by using your customer data on, for example, resource adequacy cost impacts from strategic load reduction; CCA generation-side bill impacts, including those for solar customers; and impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, retail electricity sales, and whole procurement costs.

NavigaDER allows CCAs to see the forest and the trees. It’s important to understand and compare program designs that offer the best value across our service area, while also identifying a subset of customers who benefit the most from a program strategy. This subset of customers represents those most likely to benefit from a technology – using CCA data, not demographics, to identify technology adoption.

DERs modeled in the current version of NavigaDER include battery energy storage systems, solar PV, fuel-switching via heat pumps and heat pump water heaters, and EV supply equipment.

Join MCE for a webinar series to learn about real-life examples of how CCAs are using NavigaDER to intelligently deploy new resources on the grid so that they can manage system load, create economic value for the CCA and our customers, reduce GHG emissions, increase resiliency for customers and the grid, engage customers, and create local jobs.

To learn more, sign up for our October 30th presentation on NavigaDER as part of CalCCA’s Community Energy Innovation webinar series.