DER Transactive Energy Rate Strategy & Technology

NHEC is in the process of launching an innovative Transactive Energy Rate for its members so that all Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) can participate in market-based pricing. The rate enables participating members to arbitrage hourly prices using their DER devices like EVs, Solar with Batteries, and more. NHEC partnered with Bellawatt to leverage our energy market and technology product expertise to design, build, and pilot the underlying technology for a Transactive Energy Rate.

We developed TER software to send NHEC's day-ahead price signal to DER devices like V2G Chargers, receive daily device usage reports, and then post them to NHEC's NISC billing system. Participating customers are able to charge and discharge their DER devices based on energy prices and see device-level usage and credits reflected on their monthly bill. NHEC’s Fermata Energy V2G pilot at Plymouth State University discharged over 1 MWh into the grid generating over $1,300 in credits for the university in less than 6 months of deployment.

NHEC saw an opportunity to significantly benefit their members with DERs, estimating thousands of dollars in possible credits per participant per year. Bellawatt leveraged its energy and product expertise to help NHEC set product priorities, design & develop the underlying technology, and worked with aggregators to pilot the rate to ensure it's launch ready.

Bellawatt offers full-service software consulting and includes every aspect of Designing, Developing, and Delivering premier software for Enterprise with the best of energy and technology industry expertise. Our team of energy and technology experts worked closely with NHEC's internal teams, their billing system provider, and aggregators to design and build the underlying architecture to enable member DER registration and participation for the Transactive Energy Rate.

We believe the best products are built by clearly understanding and advocating for key user needs and smooth experiences while balancing business objectives. In order to build infrastructure that both members and aggregators could adopt easily while operating reliably, we conducted in-depth interviews with NHEC staff and over ten aggregators before transitioning into solution design. Our research derisked the use of OpenADR as a DER communication protocol, identified aggregator business and technology friction points, and established relationships we successfully leveraged for pilot purposes.

Bellawatt then designed and built the underlying technology to onboard and communicate with member DER devices registered for the Transactive Energy Rate. We also built tools that helped streamline NHEC's member registration process while reducing the likelihood of errors and issues for customers given the complexities associated with IOT DER device registration. We then worked with leading companies in the DER, V2G, and storage industries, including Fermata Energy and General Motors, to conduct early pilots to build confidence in tech and operations prior to rate launch.

We believe in establishing long-term partnerships to help our clients achieve maximum value in their innovation endeavors. With NHEC, we successfully researched, designed, developed, and launched a Transactive Energy Rate technology for DERs, and iterated on it with partners to have it tested and ready for full scale launch.

We've launched similarly impactful products with energy industry leaders ranging from Sunrun and Amazon to Austin Energy and the U.S. Department of Energy. With every partnership we come closer to a more tech-friendly, efficient, and modern energy ecosystem.