2027 Event Agenda

New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) set out goals to have 70% of the state’s electricity generated by renewable energy by 2030 and 100% zero-emissions electricity by 2040. These progressive targets and supporting policies have driven increased DER interconnection applications across the state, and especially in New York City.

In New York, DER developers have a range of resources to inform their planning processes, including hosting capacity maps and utility provided guides. But a key driver of a project’s economic viability is the system upgrade costs, which can only be obtained through an engineering study.

Con Edison, the electric utility of NYC, partnered with Kevala to investigate through a pilot program how earlier access to indicative cost estimates could improve developer experience and result in more targeted applications. Kevala developed the Predictive Interconnection Siting Metrics (PrISM) platform leveraging historical cost data to build predictive models that generate screening-grade cost estimates in seconds. This gives developers early visibility into grid constraints and upgrade costs that dictate project ROI, key information that traditionally takes ~60 days of formal study to uncover. By providing developers with pre-application insights and reducing the number of speculative applications that strain utility engineering resources, PrISM can provide benefits to developers and utilities alike.

Con Edison and Kevala will present on the lessons learned from the pilot program including:

• Building a solid foundation
  • Visibility into the queue using a structured database for DERs
  • Understanding the different pre-application journeys and goals

• Developing in partnership
  • Leveraging public data sources with internal knowledge to move faster
  • Building predictive models using historic costs: access, interpretation and refinement

• Incorporating design principles
  • Presenting complex information through intentional design
  • Collaborating with 7 DER development organizations across various user testing phases
  • Managing user desires and company goals