After years of negotiating, California has found a way to connect renewable energy sources with their stressed grid

When interconnected, solar energy can help bigger, more
stressed power grids. (APPA photo, Unsplash)

A new agreement in California has brought energy stakeholders together to help the state's taxed grid.

"For years, utilities have grappled with how to handle the ever-growing number of solar and battery systems trying to connect to the lower-voltage grids that deliver power to customers," reports Jeff St. John of Canary Media. "But distributed solar and battery resources can also be enormous assets: By holding back power when the grid doesn't need it and then sharing their extra power during periods of high demand, they can help alleviate grid strains and lower the cost of keeping the grid running for everyone."

The agreement between California regulators, utilities and clean-energy proponents has taken "nearly four years to hash out," St. John reports. "But in mid-March, the California Public Utilities Commission approved new interconnection rules that take into account how, with the right structures in place, solar and solar-plus-battery systems can be more help than hazard to California's overworked grid."

CPUC's new policy allows solar and battery projects to "modulate how much power they send to the grid with the help of either solar inverters whose power-control systems can reduce power output from moment to moment or batteries that can soak up excess solar power and inject it back into the grid later," St. John explains. 

Solving grid-interconnection conflicts is a nationwide challenge. 

St. John rreports, "Utilities have very good reasons to take a conservative, safety-first approach to interconnection. After all, they're responsible for keeping grids safe and reliable — and distributed energy resources represent potential disruptions to those grids that utilities can't directly control."