The Pew Playbook just told utilities what to do. Here's how they can actually act on it.

On April 28, 2026, The Pew Charitable Trusts published a 54-page policy playbook arguing that distributed energy resources (DERs) are the fastest, lowest-cost way to keep the U.S. grid reliable through the next decade of load growth. It's titled Distributed Energy Can Unleash the Resilient, Affordable Grid of the Future, and it's the most comprehensive distributed-energy policy document this industry has produced since New York's REV order ten years ago.

If you work at a utility, sit on a public utility commission, or run distribution planning for an IOU, you should read it. If you don't have time, here's the short version, why it matters, and what it takes to actually implement it.

What the Pew playbook says

Six policy actions, organized around three goals:

Goal 1 — Integrate DERs into utility planning and procurement. Require DER optimization in distribution planning. Set state-mandated VPP capacity targets. Align utility revenue frameworks (REV-style share-of-net-benefits, NC Active Load Management Incentive, MN shared savings) so DERs and traditional infrastructure earn returns on equal terms.

Goal 2 — Reduce barriers to DER permitting and grid access. Automate residential and commercial permitting. Streamline interconnection — including flexible interconnection, with UK Power Networks held up as the international model. DOE's recommended 2030 targets: 75 days for 50 kW–5 MW systems, 140 days for systems above 5 MW.

Goal 3 — Strengthen community resilience with DER solutions. Use microgrids, community resilience hubs, and VPPs to reduce outage frequency and duration. Reference programs include Puerto Rico's LUMA Customer Battery Energy Sharing (where 70,000 batteries discharged simultaneously to deliver 48 MW and avert a blackout on July 8, 2025), Louisiana's 385-microgrid Priority Climate Action Plan, and Oregon's microgrid framework under H.B. 2065/2066.

The headline number worth memorizing: Pew cites that VPPs and distributed capacity can deliver peak power at 40–60% the cost of conventional resources. That's the affordability argument; it's the basis for why state PUCs are about to start requiring this.

Why the Pew report changes the conversation

One — the credibility bench is heavyweight. The advisory council is co-chaired by Audrey Zibelman (former NY PSC chair, former AEMO CEO) and Pat Wood III (former PUC of Texas and FERC chair). Industry contributors include Jigar Shah, Tilak Subrahmanian (Eversource), Mark Bremer (National Grid), Neil Chatterjee (former FERC chair, now Palmetto), Chris Rauscher (Sunrun), and Lon Huber (former Duke). External reviewers include RMI, SEPA, and SEIA. This is not a one-organization policy paper that the utility industry can shrug off.  

Two — it's actionable. Each of the six recommendations comes with policy templates, action steps for legislatures and state commissions, and case studies from states that have already done it: Virginia (H.B. 2346 requiring Dominion to develop a VPP tariff by November 15, 2026), Colorado (S.B. 24-218 with a 125 MW VPP target for Xcel by 2031, third-party-only management mandated through 2027), Massachusetts (Climate Act 2024 consolidated permitting), Illinois (CEJA + S.B. 25 VPP compensation), Texas (S.B. 1202 third-party inspections; ADER wholesale VPP pilot), New York (REV share-of-net-benefits 30/70). The playbook doesn't ask utilities or commissions to invent something — it points at working implementations and asks them to copy.

Three — it lands in the middle of the cost crisis. Electricity rates rose more than 6% nationally in 2025, double-digit in some service territories. About one in six U.S. households is behind on utility bills. IOUs expect to spend $1.1 trillion on grid infrastructure from 2025 to 2029. The Pew framing — that distributed capacity can defer 40–60% of that spend at lower cost to ratepayers — is going to make it into PUC dockets, rate cases, and gubernatorial energy plans through the rest of 2026. State commissions are going to start requiring the analytical work the playbook describes.  

Where the playbook leaves a gap — 100 kW–20 MW utility-aware dispatchable capacity

Reading the Pew report cover to cover, one gap stands out: the implementation language is rich for residential DERs (rooftop solar, behind-the-meter batteries, smart thermostats, EVs) and for utility-scale infrastructure. But the segment between them — the 100 kW–20 MW middle tier of utility-side distributed capacity — is exactly where utility planners need a productized partner, and exactly where the market has no platform provider today.

This is the segment BoxPower has been quietly building for. Our Distributed Capacity Solutions are a fully-integrated, productized Plan → Build → Operate stack purpose-built for the utility-owned middle tier:

• EASI Planning Engagement delivers the constraint screening, BCA, wires-vs-DER comparison, and procurement-ready outputs Pew Recommendation 1 asks utilities to file. 4–12 weeks to a deliverable that drops into the next IRP, NWA solicitation, or rate case — not a slide deck about distributed capacity, the actual analytical foundation a planning team needs to commit capital.

• MIEMS + FlexConnect controls provide VPP-grade fleet orchestration with SCADA/DERMS integration. The asset fleet presents to utility operators as a single controllable resource — exactly the operational definition Pew uses for a virtual power plant, and exactly what the Dominion VPP tariff and the Xcel third-party VPP requirement need on the operator's side of the contract.

• Standardized Hardware Kits collapse the soft-cost burden Pew Recommendation 4 targets. Containerized solar + storage + controls + islanding, engineered to a single utility-grade, FEOC-compliant specification. Permitting reviews drop because the same kit gets reviewed every time, not a new package per site.

• Three case studies underway— Andalusia, Hopi, Colusa — demonstrate Pew Recommendation 6 (community resilience) at middle-tier scale. Andalusia: a 100-home development bridging a 3–5 year interconnection wait with a $3M BESS + Gen microgrid. Hopi: 8 MW PV + 6 MW / 12 MWh BESS providing islanding resilience while participating in APS demand response and capacity markets. Colusa: a CEC-funded FlexConnect-protocol microgrid controller letting a housing development proceed under a flexible interconnection agreement instead of waiting for a feeder upgrade.

Six years operating utility-owned solar + storage at 99.99999% reliability. 50+ systems deployed since 2016, 100+ in development. The operational claim is the operating record.

What this means if you're at a utility right now

If you're at a utility in Virginia, Colorado, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico — your commission is implementing some or all of the Pew framework now, on a clock. Dominion's VPP tariff is due to the Virginia State Corporation Commission by November 15, 2026 — about six months from this post. Xcel's 125 MW VPP target requires third-party management through 2027 with at least 5 MW going through competitive solicitation. Massachusetts' EFSB consolidated permitting framework went live in February 2026.

If you're in any of those territories and you don't yet have a procurement-ready answer for distributed capacity in the 100 kW–20 MW tier, BoxPower is built for the conversation. We've packaged the full mapping into a white paper — every Pew recommendation, the part of the Distributed Capacity Solutions platform that implements it, and the case-study evidence that we've delivered against it before. Reach out at info@boxpower.com or (530) 802-5477, and download the white paper here.

The grid the Pew authors are describing — affordable, reliable, distributed-by-default — gets built site by site, contract by contract, by operators who can actually deliver. If you're at a state commission or in a governor's energy office working on the policy side: the Pew playbook is the policy framework. Procurement-ready execution at the middle tier is the operational answer.

Thanks for reading,

Angelo Campus, CEO and Co-Founder

Sources: The Pew Charitable Trusts, Distributed Energy Can Unleash

‍