Reflecting on 2021: Energy in the headlines
2021 was a year in which energy took center stage in ways it hasn’t in years. The momentum behind decarbonization continued to grow, hydrogen as an energy...
CRA provides integrated resource planning and integrated grid planning services to investor-owned and publicly-owned utilities. On the resource planning side, CRA has developed robust and evolutionary process roadmaps and analytical frameworks for evaluating challenging supply and demand-side investment questions facing electric and gas utilities today. These include assessing complex resource adequacy issues involving planning and operating reserves and analyzing centralized and decentralized solutions including demand side management, energy storage, and distributed generation.
On the grid planning side, CRA helps electric utilities develop a long-term vision for the future grid and their strategies for achieving it. This includes developing long term forecasts for demand at the edge of the grid, including the impact of DER, EVs, customer systems and energy efficiency. Grid planning to support the investments in infrastructure, IT, and OT systems; organizational changes; regulatory action; and process improvement that will be required to support the operational needs and resiliency for decades to come.
Our Focus Areas
CRA discusses the importance of power grid modernization
Forbes quoted CRA Vice President Jim McMahon in an article discussing smart grid resilience questions that have arisen following the Texas power outages:
“The power outages across Texas reveal an issue that goes far beyond managing transmission lines… Traditional grid planning processes are no longer acceptable as flexible use of the grid is required. A digitized grid that supports a diverse and distributed set of resources is needed to manage through uncertainty. Prioritization is urgently needed, and if these recent events have taught us anything, it’s that now is the time to get serious about prevention and tackle solutions that may not be easy, but that pave the way for grid resilience.”
Engagements
- 01Client study on net benefits to electricity consumers of proposed solar legislationExperts in CRA’s Energy Practice recently completed a study for Cypress Creek Renewables on the net benefits to electricity consumers of proposed solar...View engagement
- 02Alliant Energy’s Iowa Clean Energy BlueprintCRA consultants supported Alliant Energy in a collaborative resource planning effort for its Iowa utility – Interstate Power and Light Company (IPL) – to...View engagement
- 03Development of Grid Modernization Plan for Liberty UtilitiesCRA has worked with Liberty Utilities, an 800,000 customer utility operating in the U.S. and Canada, with a series of grid modernization initiatives aimed at...View engagement
Meet our team
Recent events
International Women's Day - Women in Climate Action
Meera Kotak speaks about COP reflections and the importance of a Just Transition. The Summit explores how gender equality is both impacting and impacted by...
10th FSR Annual Conference - Infrastructure Investment Challenges: Reconciling Competition, Decarbonisation and Digitalisation
Drake Daniel Hernandez is presenting his paper titled “Modelling Optimal Hydrogen Transmission Network Infrastructure” during the conference. For more...