How Utilities Can Manage DER Growth While Maintaining Grid Stability

The rapid growth of distributed energy resources (DERs) is changing how utilities operate their distribution networks. Increasing levels of solar generation, battery storage, electric vehicles, and demand response resources are introducing new operational challenges such as variable generation, reverse power flow, voltage excursions, and localized thermal constraints.

As utilities modernize their infrastructure and transition toward more decentralized energy systems, they require a grid-aware platform that provides real-time visibility into DER activity while maintaining reliability and operational control. Utilities must:

• Understand how DERs impact feeders and substations
• Assess available operating capacity
• Identify emerging constraint violations, and
• Coordinate DER participation across multiple programs and aggregators

A Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) enables utilities to move beyond monitoring to actively managing DER flexibility; allowing operators to anticipate issues, respond to changing grid conditions, and maintain stability across the distribution network.

Coordinated Monitoring, Control, and Optimization of Distributed Energy Resources with SurvalentONE DERMS

SurvalentONE DERMS is a grid-centric solution designed to extend the capabilities of SurvalentONE ADMS by providing advanced visibility, coordination, and operational control of distributed energy resources across the distribution network.

By integrating DER data with the distribution network model, SurvalentONE DERMS enables utilities to assess real-time DER behavior, understand their impact on grid conditions, and identify potential constraint violations before they occur. This allows operators to take proactive action to maintain safe operating limits and ensure reliable grid performance.

With SurvalentONE DERMS, utilities can coordinate DERs as flexible grid resources; aggregating and dispatching them to support voltage management, reduce congestion, and address localized system constraints. This coordinated approach enables utilities to maximize the value of distributed resources while maintaining full situational awareness of their distribution system.

SurvalentONE DERMS provides a comprehensive set of capabilities that enable utilities to effectively manage distributed energy resources. It offers real-time visibility into DER performance and their impact across feeders and substations, along with coordinated control to dispatch resources in response to voltage, thermal, and operational constraints.

The system also delivers aggregated insights into DER behavior, availability, and overall system performance, while supporting operating capacity evaluation, scenario analysis, and constraint-aware planning to guide more informed operational and planning decisions.