The electric power industry is entering a new phase in its evolution. The emergence of distributed energy resources on the grid, once seen as an existential threat to power utilities, is opening up new revenue streams for technology vendors, private-sector service providers and utilities alike.
The industry is eschewing “utility death spiral” rhetoric for the market-based lingo of REV, DRP, DRAM and DREAM, proactive regulatory mechanisms that drive electricity generation and delivery away from traditional cost-recovery models and toward the planning for and procurement of DER solutions, such as solar PV, energy storage and demand response.
But will these new regulatory mechanisms allow fair competition for players across the value chain, including utilities? Which technologies will be best suited to compete, and will they be incentivized to do so? And how will these reforms affect the customer, the stakeholder at the very center of the market?
The detailed answers to these questions, and many others, are being articulated and debated in utility planning documents and among regulatory commissions from Maine to Hawaii. The details being hammered out today will become the benchmarks that will define success tomorrow.
This report aims to provide insights into these debates shaping tomorrow’s power grid. GTM Squared conducted the most detailed survey to date on the market’s evolution and the players influencing its roadmap. From power utilities to the officials that regulate them, the vendors that serve them, and the companies that compete against them, we gathered detailed answers from nearly 500 professionals who responded to the 20-question survey, which serves as the foundation for this report.
