As distributed energy resources (DERs) such as solar, battery storage, and electric vehicles continued to grow, a large North American electric utility recognized the need for a more coordinated approach to managing these resources at scale. The utility was preparing for a Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) deployment that would support emerging operational needs, enable new DER use cases, and position the organization for a more dynamic and decentralized grid. To support long-term success, the utility sought to establish a clear path from its current operating model to a future-state DER-enabled organization.
Develop an enterprise-wide DERMS roadmap that aligned people, processes, technology, and governance to support the successful integration and management of distributed energy resources.
Implementing DERMS was not simply a technology deployment. The utility needed to understand how DERs would impact planning, operations, engineering, customer programs, and other business functions across the organization. Existing processes were built around traditional grid operations and did not fully account for the increasing complexity of distributed assets, two-way power flows, and cross-functional decision-making. Before moving forward, the organization needed a clear understanding of its future operating requirements, policy considerations, organizational capabilities, and the dependencies required to support DERMS adoption at scale.
Mosaic partnered with the utility to establish a comprehensive foundation for DERMS success. The engagement included development of a strategic DERMS roadmap, creation of a future-state DER lifecycle framework, and identification, definition, and prioritization of DERMS use cases.
Each use case was evaluated for business value, operational readiness, and technical dependencies, then documented with functional requirements, data needs, and the systems and teams involved. This analysis helped identify gaps across people, process, technology, and policy while providing a clearer understanding of the utility's readiness to support DERMS capabilities.
Mosaic also facilitated alignment across business units to establish shared priorities, governance approaches, and decision-making structures. Building on these findings, the team defined implementation work packages, sequenced activities into actionable timelines, and identified the requirements needed to support both DERMS deployment and long-term operational adoption.
Through this work, Mosaic helped the utility move from isolated DER initiatives toward an enterprise-wide operating model designed to support a more distributed grid and position the organization for future DER growth.
The utility gained a clear, organization-wide roadmap that improved readiness, reduced implementation risk, and established a structured path for scaling DER operations. By defining future-state processes, prioritizing high-value DERMS use cases, and creating an implementation plan aligned across business functions, the utility was better positioned to integrate distributed energy resources as an increasingly important part of the grid.
