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DERMS and FlexConnect: PG&E pilot projects aim to accelerate energization, support EV fleets and enable virtual power plants
Summary
PG&E told CPUC staff and stakeholders that its DERMS platform (deployed since 2023) is enabling FlexConnect bridging, EV managed charging pilots, non‑wires alternatives and a South Bay virtual power plant MVP, and that scaling is planned in the 2027 GRC.
At the March 2025 CPUC workshop, PG&E presented progress on a distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) it says has been in production since 2023 and is already enabling operational flexibility use cases such as the FlexConnect bridging program, EV managed charging pilots and planned virtual power plant (VPP) demonstrations.
Salma (Salina) Bok, Principal Product Manager for Clean Energy Technology Platforms at PG&E, said DERMS now provides a production headend that supports IEEE 2030.5 telemetry, has 28 customer telemetry integrations for DERs 1 MW and above, and is operating FlexConnect sites that enable customers to use capacity above their static planning limits under a 72‑hour schedule and day‑ahead signaling.
One live DERMS FlexConnect example presented at the workshop showed a battery site operating under 72‑hour schedules that raised a planning limit from 2 MW to as much as 6 MW during specified windows; another example described an electric‑truck fleet that used FlexConnect to begin charging roughly 18 months earlier than the long‑term distribution upgrade timetable, saving the customer an estimated $1,000,000 in fuel costs and avoiding roughly 8,000 tons of CO2 (figures cited by PG&E for that specific customer case).
PG&E said its near‑term DERMS priorities (current GRC cycle through 2026) include scaling FlexConnect geographically and across customer types, supporting non‑wires alternatives (an NWA battery in Bakersfield is coming online), expanding EV grid integration (VGI) pilots for managed charging and vehicle‑to‑everything (V2X), and initial VPP pilots, including a summer MVP in South Bay intended to use DER dispatch to relieve overloaded substations and reduce outage risk.
Longer‑term DERMS capabilities proposed for the 2027–2030 cycle include larger‑scale FlexConnect, orchestrating VPPs across multiple modes of engagement, integrating DERMS with grid‑edge computing (for hyper‑local EV charging control and avoiding service upgrades), and improved T&D data sharing. PG&E said many DERMS use cases are supported by EPIC R&D projects and ongoing pilots that are informing scale and operational design.
PG&E emphasized that the business models and compensation mechanisms for DERs (for example, how aggregators, customers and utilities share value) remain the subject of separate proceedings and program designs; the DERMS filing in the 2027 GRC will document technology capabilities, pilot results and expected operational benefits where quantifiable.
