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The deregulation and opening of energy markets to competition has the potential to bring substantial benefits to energy consumers, particularly through greater choice among energy supply options, including renewable and distributed energy resources (DER).
But whether this potential will be realized, and how soon, depends on how effectively the energy marketplace (whether or not deregulated) can embrace the new concepts, technologies, and players in this arena, and whether these far-reaching changes are actively facilitated by energy policy makers.
There are several obstacles to greater adoption of DER, including the fact that there are few regulations that specifically address DER applications, especially distributed generation. Most distributed energy management technologies face few regulatory hurdles.
Currently, the broad range of distributed generation equipment must either comply with regulations designed for large, central power stations or comply with regulations originally written specifically for renewable power plants or cogeneration systems. This, together with the considerable variation in regulations from state to state and utility to utility, has led to an increasing number of regulatory and policy initiatives addressing distributed generation, particularly in deregulated states.
Pursue the following links for more information on regulatory and policy issues pertaining to DER. Not all of these topics are driven by industry restructuring; renewables portfolio standards, for example, are designed to meet clean energy objectives that can be quite independent of restructuring.
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