Case Study: Large California Utility Company achieves precise, circuit-level DER adoption forecasts with Resource Innovations

Building a Marketplace That Delivers Real Impact for Utility Customers

Large California Utility Company faced rapidly accelerating adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs) — rooftop solar PV, battery storage, and EVs — and needed spatially granular forecasts to understand their economic feasibility and grid impacts. Resource Innovations was engaged to provide detailed DER forecasting services, using its SPIDER (Spatial Penetration and Integration of Distributed Energy Resources) model and comprehensive technology diffusion analysis to assess adoption, economics, and circuit-level impacts.

Resource Innovations implemented its SPIDER model with ZIP-code-level back-casting calibration and hourly battery dispatch optimization to produce spatially granular, dynamic forecasts. The forecasts — developed over six years in collaboration with the utility and California’s Distribution Forecasting Working Group — are considered “best practice,” feed the utility’s distribution system planning, and have enabled proactive grid readiness and investment planning supported by rigorous, data-driven analysis.