Coloradans want to electrify their homes, vehicles, and businesses, but the state’s antiquated electric grid wasn’t built to accommodate electric vehicles (EVs) and rooftop solar + storage systems. Grid upgrades are needed, but the utility has been making slow, incremental piecemeal changes.

Advanced Energy United knew that we could leverage policy solutions to make it easier for distributed energy resources (DER), virtual power plants (VPP), and EV companies to get their products adopted by consumers.

Advanced Energy United helped create legislation that requires electric utilities to proactively plan and make large-scale strategic improvements, so that it is easier and cheaper for customers to connect energy resources like rooftop solar and EVs to the grid, and the establishment of a VPP program.

The bill developed in Colorado was a first-in-the-nation ‘Grid of the Future’ bill that married distribution grid planning and investment with statewide clean energy and decarbonization goals, creating a policy solution for Colorado energy businesses to flourish and a model for states across the country.

SB24-218 was authored by Sen. Steve Fenberg and Sen. Chris Hansen after hearing from Advanced Energy United’s member companies about the challenges faced by companies trying to get technology solutions in the hands of consumers. Households and businesses faced opaque connection and energization timelines, and didn’t have the opportunity to take part in programs that could allow people to monetize the energy they produced at home.

Advanced Energy United then helped build a coalition of supporters, including clean energy businesses, union labor, environmental advocates, the Colorado Solar and Storage Association, and even Xcel Energy, which will be required to make proactive and timely upgrades to the state’s electricity system to meet future electrification demand.

Advanced Energy United built bipartisan support for the legislation, championed it across the finish line, and celebrated Governor Polis’ signing of the bill.

The 2024 legislation was widely celebrated by the clean energy community and has the potential to provide lower-cost energy solutions to all of Colorado. By modernizing the state’s distribution planning and interconnection processes to make them more transparent, thorough, and reflective of load management technologies that can significantly reduce the need for costly upgrades, Colorado’s electric grid will be cleaner, more reliable, and more affordable for all ratepayers.

“Not all states even have a distribution system planning, but Colorado already had one, and then they improved it to make sure that everybody is thinking about what are the grid needs going to be in the future, especially as we electrify vehicles and buildings,” said Advanced Energy United’s Leah Rubin Shen in an interview after the bill was signed into law. That makes it a national leader for other states to model as they consider ways to modernize their distribution grids as well.