Overview

Advancing the tools, methods, and practices used to plan the distribution system is paramount to ensuring a safe, reliable, resilient, and cost-effective system with an increasing adoption of electrification and distributed energy resources and expanding modernization efforts. Research in this project set will advance the planning tools, methods, and practices needed to realize the modern and decarbonized distribution system. These capabilities are key to ensuring expansions and upgrade decisions are effective and efficiently reached in light of increasing uncertainty, complex system interactions, and changing planning objectives and stakeholder engagement needs.

Key Research Areas

Strategic Planning

Frameworks for evaluating strategies to optimize system utilization & costs through expansion & flexibilities in new end-use demands

Forecasting

Guidance on evolving forecasting requirements including how to account for extreme weather events & different technology adoptions

Non-Wires Alternatives

Analytics, tools, and guidance to evaluate NWAs alongside traditional alternatives

Electrification

Methods & models to assess the impact of changing load profiles & consideration in planning scenarios

System Design Practices

Guidance on design practices for enabling high penetration DER & EVs including voltage regulation, secondary impacts, & cost factors

Analytics to Support Operational Decisions

Tools to enable planners to assess system configurations & support operator decision making of a more flexible system

Research Value

Research spans all aspects of tactical and strategic planning including forecasting advancements, refinements to planning criteria, models to assess emerging system needs, methods and tools for holistically evaluating non-wires alternatives, and planning practices to address uncertainty. Planners can apply the work done here to improve decision-making. Application of the results enables:

• Cost-effective system designs to meet higher levels of electrification demands and DER generation under increasing uncertainty
• Planning criteria that matches the needs and behavior of the modern decarbonized distribution system accounting for risk management considerations
• Efficient, effective, and holistic evaluation of traditional planning alternatives along with non-wires alternatives and demand flexibility through new methods, automation and advanced analytical capabilities
• Clear guidance on how planning activities can be applied towards increasing system reliability and resilience
• Enhance planners’ ability to evaluate system expansion decisions under climate change and extreme weather events
• Ability to quantify costs and benefits, justify projects and programs, and prioritize portfolio of proposed projects across capacity, reliability, asset condition, and other project drivers
• Inform planning assessments and decisions with resilience, equity, and other emerging considerations
• Educate and inform planners with comprehensive guidance and industry best practices and lessons learned
• Ensure customer and societal value is optimized through informed system upgrades and expansion

Task Force

This task force consists of utility subject-matter experts in areas related to distribution planning including short-term/tactical planning, long-term/strategic planning, reliability and resilience planning, design standards, and forecasting. It is a good opportunity to network with your peers at other utilities, understand how to apply the latest findings, and advise the EPRI research throughout the year.

This task force meets roughly every month via webex. That latest calendar can be found here. Members are encouraged to participate in several ways:

• Attend task-force meetings and provide input on projects
• Provide data on your utility’s system
• Provide information on your utility’s methods, tools, and practices (a survey for example)
• Review and comment on reports and findings

If you have questions about the task force, contact Lindsey Rogers

Related Research

Supplemental Projects

Application Opportunities

• Non-Wires Alternatives Assessments
• Electrification Grid Readiness Assessments
• Distribution Resilience Planning Assessments
• Strategic Planning Studies

For more on supplemental project opportunities, click here. To discuss project ideas, contact Lindsey Rogers