SEPA Asks For Feedback On Draft DERMS Standards

The Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) has released a draft comprehensive requirements document for distributed energy resources management systems (DERMS) and now welcomes review and comments from industry participants.

To create the DERMS requirements document, SEPA began working with a utilities-only working group in January 2016. Co-led by representatives from Southern California Edison, Duke Energy and ComEd, the working group convened as a means of ensuring utilities reduced their risks of procuring a system that falls short of their operational requirements. Additionally, these requirements will inform and guide industry solution providers in their own product development efforts.

“We are committed to facilitating these important conversations in our industry to accelerate the transformation required to accommodate DERs,” says Sharon Allan, SEPA’s chief innovation officer. “We welcome industry feedback on the DERMS requirements and expect to create other requirements documents in the future to foster innovation and hasten deployments.”

“We chose to collaborate with peers to gain a wide-angle view of the grid impacts DERs present and how utilities might best meet them,” says Erik Takayesu, director of grid modernization at Southern California Edison. “This document represents informed observations from utility professionals in operations, strategy and information technology functions. We’re eager to see industry comments as we innovate solutions for our grid of the future.”

After months of meetings, the SEPA Grid Management Working Group invites new industry participants from both the utility and the vendor communities to review its draft DERMS Requirements document at DermsTerms.org and submit commentary. SEPA also plans to conduct a meeting on Jan. 22 in San Antonio, Texas, in association with DistribuTECH 2018.