Sustainability goals grow in importance for business DER uptake in US
Sustainability goals are starting to rival cost reduction as a key reason to invest in distributed energy resources, NRG Energy’s latest annual survey finds.
The survey, conducted by Smart Energy Decisions, is designed to uncover trends in what is a growing variety of both hardware technology and software services with a growing range of benefits for investors.
Traditionally cost reduction has been the number one reason for deploying distributed resources and was cited by eight out of ten as among the top reasons and almost half as the top reason in the survey, which was focussed on commercial, industrial and other institutional large power users.
However, growing in importance in the past year was the increased push on emissions reductions, with this cited by one in five to make it the now second most important driver for the segment.
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When it comes to technologies, on-site solar has continued to dominate as the top choice, although with a shrinking margin, followed by electric vehicle charging infrastructure and demand response. However, interest in other technologies is growing, particularly storage, with only one quarter having deployed it to date but over half expecting to do so.
These findings indicate both that the promises of distributed resources are being fulfilled but also that interest remains strong, especially for those resources that can deliver multiple benefits.
Further, awareness of the financial risks of outages is increasing, although fewer than one-third have so far actually assessed these in dollar terms.
However, costs, both in capex and opex continue to be a top barrier for deployment, ahead of the technical challenges.
As a result alternative deployment models are maturing and while the majority own and operate their own facilities, interest is growing in contract options, both for full service and operations.
Another notable finding is that partner preference is fragmenting with utilities but customers are increasingly working with a variety of other partners in roughly equal measures, including energy services providers and distributed energy resource product and services providers.
“It is evident that a strong partner is increasingly vital to create and implement strategies in order to maximise the benefits of distributed energy resource investments,” the report advises.
