Led by Governor Phil Murphy, the Garden State will finalize its 2019 Energy Master Plan, which aims to achieve 100% clean energy by 2050. This plan will set up a strategic vision for the future of energy in New Jersey including all aspects of production, distribution, consumption, and conservation. The newly released The Role of Distributed Energy Resources in New Jersey’s Clean Energy Transition, created by Gridworks, Gridlab, and the Center for Renewables Integration, supports New Jersey in the transition outlined in the Energy Master Plan. The press release for this new paper is available here.
This paper concludes that DER can and must play a key role in realizing the goal of 100% clean energy for New Jersey. DER can provide new services to utilities and customers, complements large scale renewable installations, and provides new opportunities for grid services.
This paper identifies a key set of recommendations to help empower the deployment of DER and the included services.
Recommendations include the integration of DER, the embrace of the electrification of both buildings and transportation, ensuring equity is a core planning consideration, and identifying holistic grid planning as a key to achieving the 100% clean energy goal by 2050.
With DER already being deployed by both consumers and utilities, the need for grid integration will be key to increasing the resiliency of the grid and fully value DER services into the future.
