Analyst firm Wood Mackenzie recently surveyed the DERMS category to understand the latest utility priorities for DERs and compare solution providers in the market. They’ve summarized their findings in their new report, “Managing DERs and enabling a flexible grid: DERMS technology evolution and competitive vendor analysis.”

The report offers insights on how utilities’ goals with DERs have evolved along with grid needs, technical capabilities, and consumer demand.

Overall, the report points to utilities being able to incorporate DERs as part of the solution for a cleaner, more reliable grid, rather than them being just a challenge to overcome.

“Utilities are now moving away from seeking to accommodate renewable energy and DERs and are leaning in on orchestrating them. The surge in clean energy and carbon free commitments by utilities, customer demand for carbon free power and increasing favorable project economics make DERs valuable tools in unlocking the value of renewable energy, while shaping new customer demand…. The utility industry is shifting from mitigating the operation of assets at the grid edge to monetizing them.”

The report profiled EnergyHub as one of the featured providers of a DERMS platform. Here’s what they had to say:

“EnergyHub, the fleet DERMS provider with the largest portfolio in the US, has plans to deepen edge DERMS capabilities to move closer to the control room operations. With over 50 utility customers and the ability to integrate with a long list of DER manufacturers, EnergyHub has established a unique and strong presence in the fleet space, as the vendor plans to extend its capabilities to strengthen provide data analytics and dispatch capabilities necessary to improve DER management relevant to the control room.”

The DER portfolios managed through EnergyHub’s platform have attained real scale across a wide range of DER asset classes. Utilities collectively manage over 1.6GW in flexible load from behind-the-meter resources through EnergyHub’s platform today.

Case studies from EnergyHub clients

The report spotlighted EnergyHub’s work with utilities including Arizona Public Service (APS), Eversource, and National Grid – all pioneers in the application of DERs for sophisticated use cases. They specifically featured EnergyHub’s work with APS to manage multiple asset classes to provide demand response, absorb excess solar generation, and more grid services. You can read more in our detailed case study on our work with APS.

We recently announced we’re working with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to build and manage a 25MW demand response resource to mitigate system peaks and address distribution challenges.

Earlier this year we partnered with Baltimore Gas and Electric to address the impact of electric vehicle charging on the grid and to evolve demand response with our BYOT solution.

This summer, we expanded National Grid’s DER portfolio managed through our platform to commercial and industrial sites and aggregators – alongside over 30,000 thermostats and over 1,000 batteries.