The Solar Energy Industries Association and Current Energy Group released a whitepaper addressing challenges facing the nation’s electrical infrastructure, including rising demand, elevated energy costs, and aging systems. The document, titled the Distributed Capacity Procurement Framework, presents three procurement strategies designed to expand available grid capacity, accommodate growing electricity loads, and provide cost-effective solutions to infrastructure concerns.
According to SEIA’s senior director of state regulatory affairs, traditional utility-centered approaches to meeting electricity demand are insufficient given current pressures. The framework positions distributed energy resources—including rooftop solar and battery storage systems—as tools capable of delivering necessary capacity improvements at the pace and magnitude required to address these challenges. The whitepaper represents collaborative policy analysis conducted through SEIA’s Distributed Power Project team, which incorporated expertise from the Coalition for Community Solar Access following its integration into SEIA.
The framework establishes ten foundational principles alongside corresponding policy mechanisms to guide implementation using regulatory tools already available to state and local authorities. Two core principles direct the procurement approach: prioritizing the least restrictive pathway suitable for each situation, and establishing third-party-owned or customer-owned distributed resources as the standard option, with utility ownership considered only under specific circumstances. The document emphasizes that competitive procurement of third-party-owned systems can reduce residential electricity expenses by decreasing utilities’ dependence on higher-priced wholesale market transactions.
Several states have recently enacted legislation expanding access to distributed energy resources such as community solar programs and energy storage systems. Regulatory frameworks increasingly focus on aggregating these resources through virtual power plant programs to maximize their value and grid benefits. The whitepaper provides policymakers with practical strategies for implementing distributed capacity procurement while ensuring transparent, competitive market conditions that benefit consumers and grid stability.
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