DER Event Load Forecasting For Electric Cooperatives

Over the last decade or so, load forecasting has helped drive sustainability efforts through historical data, weather patterns, and economic activity to help inform energy needs. While tariffs and supply chain challenges have impacted the clean energy sector, investments in renewable energies remain high, which includes BTM distributed energy resources (DERs) found in residential, commercial, and industrial properties, as well as grid-scale renewable energy installations.

For grid ops, BTM DERs represent an unknowable quantity when a reliable resource is required to ensure grid stability around the clock. So, how can you predict the value of those BTM DERs to ensure that you add value to your members? DER event load forecasting helps provide meaningful insights into resource viability.

The State of the Renewable Energy Market

To meet rising demand, the current administration has relied on fossil fuels to meet the national energy emergency precedent established in January 2025. This has led to the deferral of the retirements of several fossil fuel plants, which, unfortunately, costs ratepaying members (and utility operations) billions.

That is why last year, investments in the global energy transition were an impressive $2.37T. These investments include distributed energy resources (DERs) like solar, wind, and battery energy storage systems (BESS), as well as investments in electrified vehicles, carbon capture, and more. Despite legislative setbacks like costly international tariffs, the forecast for 2026 remains green in the U.S. and for good reason: renewable energies are cheaper, quicker to deploy, and comparatively durable.

Demand Flexibility Needs Member Participation To Thrive

As U.S. electric consumption continues to rise, utilities have turned to demand flexibility programs like demand response, EV charging, and virtual power plants to shift load to off-peak periods of usage. These programs function by employing DERs, which are leveraged through Grid-Edge distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS), which aggregate otherwise disparate devices to decrease usage during peak periods of demand, or to resupply demand by pulling from existing DER assets like solar or batteries in real-time. In order to realize the full potential of demand flexibility, utilities have to put members first, educating them on their opportunities to meaningfully contribute to these conservation efforts. So how can you do that?

The Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) 2025 State of the Consumer Report found that customers are increasingly concerned about mitigating rising costs and invested in trying to decrease those costs, which includes signing up for demand flexibility programs. That same report found that member engagement—educating members on potential opportunities—is crucial, with more than 70% of survey respondents reporting that they’d received messaging directly from their utility.

DER event load forecasting provides a useful tool to secure internal stakeholders to the potential of BTM DER member programs, while also demonstrating the likely return on that investment. DER event load forecasting looks at DERs in all shapes and sizes, assessing potential for any and all member programs available, while providing visibility in the decision-making process.

Types of Forecasting

For years, load forecasting has proven tedious, an arduous task involving spreadsheets and calculators to attempt to forecast tomorrow’s energy needs today. With increased development and deployment of AI and data centers, these models are increasingly inefficient in providing a clear model, due to the volatility of DERs, erratic weather patterns, and rapidly spiking demand.

Fortunately, insights driven by AI and machine learning can process extensive datasets in real-time, correlating that with historical and weather data to produce a much more precise and dynamic load forecast. This data may inform forecasting styles like:

• System load forecasting: Forecasting the aggregate system load for a utility or region.
• DER Forecasting – Forecasting the baseline DER load and event performance of DERs.

DER Event Load Forecasting & Topline Demand Control

Utilities can employ Topline Demand Control (TDC) to further operationalize BTM DERs. Topline Demand Control is a novel combination of forecasting software, the Shift Grid-Edge DERMS, AI, and model predictive control that operationalizes DERs at a granular level to ensure the desired outcome from demand flexibility programs. With Topline Demand Control, utilities can request a setpoint, and the system will reliably provide the desired output.

DER Event Load Forecasting For Co-ops: Conclusion

With the DER market proliferating and energy spiking, demand flexibility programs help provide the load shifting needed to mitigate high costs during the energy transition. With DER event load forecasting helps enable that reality by informing the most effective strategies for peak energy market purchases, long-term power purchasing agreements, and the potential efficacy of demand flexibility programs during grid events. Altogether, DER event load forecasting provides a powerful tool for cooperatives interested in decreasing operational costs, lowering member rates, and increasing the value of the BTM DERs already in your communities.

About The Author

Syd is a senior content specialist and all-around word nerd for Virtual Peaker. Syd believes in the inevitability of renewable energies and in implementing a diverse energy portfolio and is excited to use his skills to help spread that message far and wide. In his scant free time, Syd is a father of two, husband of an awesome wife, a musician, and a lover of comic books, and all things sci-fi.

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