IEEE Electrification - September 2019 - 88

VIEWPOINT

Transportation Electrification in a Grid
With Increased Non-Wires Alternatives
By Richard D. Tabors

N MY VIEW, THERE IS A
conflict developing, or
already underway, pitting
distributed energy resource (DER)
technologies against the grid-based
assets required to facilitate their
expansion within the distribution
system. The growing push for nonwires alternatives (NWAs), which are
being promoted as a replacement for
traditional substations, transformers,
and circuits, is, at best, incorrectly
evaluated and, at worst, misconceived. Advocates of NWAs are supporters of the rapid development of
DERs, arguing that DERs' contribution
to avoiding capital expenditures for
additional-most often, distributionlevel grid-assets should be rewarded. Other NWAs advocates challenge
the need for upgrades to the distribution system at all, pointing to slow or
negative demand growth and the
possibility of stranded assets.

I

Two Forces at Play
There are at least two economic forces at play in the interaction between
advocates of NWAs and traditional
distribution planning.
1) One is the development and
active promotion of the DER technologies, which include renewables in terms of rooftop and
community solar photovoltaic

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2019.2925769
Date of publication: 4 September 2019

88

(PV), combined heat and power,
demand response, energy efficiency, and distributed storage.
These all provide positive benefits
for their owner/developers and
generally for society as well.
2) The other is broadly defined as
electrification, whereby there is an
expectation of significant localized demand growth from electric
vehicles (EVs) of all sizes and the
movement toward high-efficiency
electric heat pumps to replace
fossil heating systems in residential and commercial buildings.
In both instances, government policies have played, and continue to play,
a major role in the direction and
speed of the development-first, with
tax and other financial incentives
and, second, in both cases, with a general concern for reducing greenhouse
gas emissions, that is, global warming.
The two forces are heading down
parallel paths that, to most, are socially
desirable and, although financially
encouraged through governmental
policies, are nonetheless forecast to be
economically or commercially viable in
the near future. Both forces focus on
demand-level changes in the distribution sector of the power system. Unlike
the generation and transmission sectors, distribution has, until now, seen
only minor technological change. Now,
the enabler is the existence of a robust
distribution system, and the need is for
access to reliable service and the ability

I E E E E l e c t r i f i cati o n M agaz ine / SEPTEMBER 2019

to interact with an economic market.
DERs require access to market information to value individual technologies at the time of the initial capital
decision as well as to make operational
decisions in real time concerning
whether or not to produce as a function of the energy's market value. The
EV operator (individual or fleet) requires much of the same information
as the DER owner but with an eye to
opposite incentives-charging (buying)
when the price is low and not consuming (not charging) when the price
is high. Where there is full agreement
is that knowledge about the physical
distribution system is required both for
production and sale and for consumption and purchase.
Because our economic decision criteria have become focused too much
on the short term, neither advocates
for DER nor those for EV are focused
on the possibility that the push for
NWAs may actually work to reduce
the robustness of the system. At a
high level, NWAs are most often DER
technologies situated inside a distribution feeder that work to reduce peak
demand. As a result, rooftop or community PV, peak shaving demand
modification technologies, or simply
energy efficiency are seen as means of
removing the need for traditional
investments to upgrade circuits or add
substations. There is no question that
(continued on page 85)

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