By Amanda Durish Cook

DETROIT — Four industry executives and a state regulator shared their views on distributed generation, resource adequacy and aging infrastructure during a stakeholder panel at the MISO Annual Meeting last week.

Robert Gee, of Gee Strategies Group, moderated.

Melody Birmingham-Byrd of Duke Energy Indiana called distributed energy resources an “inevitability” and said her company is embracing the change with “heavy involvement” in research and projects.

However, she said designing a DER rate structure remains a concern. “We want to make sure those who can afford distributed resources aren’t doing it on the backs of those that can’t,” she said.

Teresa Mogensen, senior vice president of transmission at Xcel Energy, said the grid “is a long, long way from being dead” and will continue to play a role even with greater use of distributed generation.

“We do have customers that have disconnected from the grid, and if they’ve done that, more power to them,” said DTE Electric President and COO Trevor Lauer. He said his company will be aided in its transition to DER by new, younger workers: DTE Energy will turn over 50% of its workforce over the next seven years, he said.

Jennifer Vosburg, senior vice president of NRG Energy’s Gulf Coast region, said customers “aren’t waiting around: The utility of the future is here. Our concern is, can the markets keep up, can the regulation keep up, can it be integrated into the market system?”

Michigan Public Service Commission Chairman Sally Talberg said she didn’t know how soon distributed resources would permeate the grid. “I have a National Geographic from 1983 that says solar is the way of the future,” she joked.

Resource Adequacy Concerns

All of the speakers expressed concerns over MISO’s ability to attract new generation to replace retiring plants.

“Right now, it’s hard to see how an independent power producer [without] a power purchase agreement could build new generation,” Lauer said.

Vosburg said MISO hasn’t implemented anything to “trigger new investment.”

The panel also addressed the growth of natural gas and its history of price volatility.

“Who would have thought seven years ago that there would be such a fundamental change in electric generation with fracking and natural gas use?” Lauer said. “I think price volatility is going to be there, but I think the larger concern is infrastructure and gas storage.”

Talberg agreed and said pumping gas through pipelines in Michigan can be “high-risk” since some pipelines are “vintage.”

The panel generally agreed that the Clean Power Plan stay isn’t going to slow progress on emission reductions.

“Our concern is the rate and pace of carbon emission [reductions], not that we’re going down that path,” Birmingham-Byrd said. “What Duke Energy is trying to do while [we] retire coal plants is to have a more diverse generation portfolio.”