A recent article in pv magazine, California Grid Operator to Address Net Imbalance, highlights the Regulatory Assistance Project’s (RAP) strategies for addressing the infamous “duck” curve and discusses the state of California’s plans to implement some of these strategies. The state’s plans include increasing its focus on flexible resources, mandating storage capacity, enhancing market design to allow for intra-hour scheduling, launching the Western region’s first energy imbalance market, establishing default time of use prices, and renewing its commitment to demand response resources.

RAP’s Teaching the “Duck” to Fly offers ten strategies utilities can use to create a load shape that can be met with existing resources. “Each of the strategies – such as implementing aggressive demand response programs or targeting efficiency to the hours when load ramps up sharply – creates modest changes in the load shape,” states Mr. Lazar, author of Teaching the “Duck” to Fly. “But, when combined, they completely solve the problem by turning the sitting duck into a streamlined flying duck. The resulting load curve is easier to serve than the projected load would have been, even without the addition of renewable resources.”