DER Deployment Could Cut US Power Costs by $600B by 2050
A Brattle Group report for Pew finds distributed energy resources could save over $600 billion in grid costs and ease household electricity bills.
Removing barriers to distributed energy resources could save the United States power system more than $600 billion through 2050, according to a new report prepared by The Brattle Group for The Pew Charitable Trusts released Wednesday.
The analysis finds that broader deployment of distributed energy resources — which include rooftop solar, battery storage, and demand-response technologies — could meaningfully slow projected increases in household electricity bills while giving the grid greater flexibility to absorb uncertain future demand.
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The findings arrive as utilities and regulators nationwide grapple with surging electricity consumption driven by data centers, electric vehicles, and industrial electrification. Distributed resources, the report suggests, represent a cost-effective alternative or complement to large-scale centralized infrastructure investments that would otherwise be passed on to ratepayers.
By enabling homes and businesses to generate, store, or curtail electricity locally, DER deployment reduces strain on transmission and distribution systems — the segments of the power sector responsible for a significant share of consumer utility costs. The Brattle Group's modeling indicates those system-level savings compound substantially over the multi-decade horizon studied.
The report frames the central challenge not as a lack of available technology but as the persistence of regulatory and market barriers that limit how distributed resources participate in and are compensated by the broader grid. Continue reading at Economic News, Trends, Analysis.
