To support its solar PV program, Southern California Edison rolled out a map of its grid system, highlighting (in red) areas that “could potentially minimize your costs of interconnection to the SCE system.” A similar map is forthcoming from San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Gas & Electric.
The benefits for distributed generation are obvious, cutting the time (and expense) for solar and other small-scale renewable energy developers to find the “sweet spots” where their projects can most economically connect to the grid.
The image below is a screenshot of PG&E’s map, and samples of other utilities’ distribution system capacity maps are online as well.
