DER Integration Isn't a Technology Problem — It's a Decision Problem

There’s a pattern emerging across Iowa’s municipal utilities. A solar developer shows up with a proposal. The utility GM pulls it apart, realizes they don’t have the internal engineering capacity to evaluate it properly, and either says no reflexively or says yes without understanding the long-term rate implications.

Neither outcome is good.

The challenge with DER integration at the distribution level isn’t technology. The panels work. The inverters work. The interconnection standards exist. The problem is that small utilities are being asked to make 20-year infrastructure decisions using evaluation frameworks designed for a world where generation was centralized and load growth was predictable.

What’s needed isn’t another feasibility study. It’s a decision framework — a structured way to evaluate DER proposals against the utility’s actual load profile, rate structure, wholesale obligations, and capital plan. That framework doesn’t have to be complicated. But it does have to be built for the scale and constraints of a 5,000-meter municipal system, not a 500,000-meter IOU.

We’ll be writing more about this in coming issues. If you’re a utility operator facing your first DER decision, the most important thing you can do right now is slow down enough to ask the right questions before the timeline pressure makes them irrelevant.