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
- 01Alliant 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
- 02Development 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
- 03Development of NIPSCO’s integrated Resource PlanCRA has been supporting NIPSCO, an Indiana utility owned by NiSource, with integrated resource planning since 2017. Today, CRA is leading the development of...View engagement
