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Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC), a member-owned utility serving 34,000 members in northern Vermont, is preparing for a future of increased electrification. The utility is already seeing rapid growth in residential-scale distributed energy resources (DERs), especially EVs and distributed solar.
But that growth also presents serious challenges. VEC’s analysis of electrification-driven load growth revealed that peak demand could double by 2040, potentially overloading 30–40% of its distribution transformers, lines, and substations. The cost of addressing these issues through traditional infrastructure upgrades is staggering—an estimated $80–100 million. For a member-owned cooperative committed to affordability, that level of investment could significantly raise rates for the very people who rely on the grid to heat their homes, charge their vehicles, and live their lives. That’s why VEC is charting a different path forward.
With this growth comes an opportunity: if VEC can manage flexible, grid-connected resources intelligently, it can make better use of its existing infrastructure, avoiding expensive upgrades and boosting affordability for all.
“We believe we can save tens of millions of dollars in grid investment costs with DER management,” said Cyril Brunner, Innovation and Technology Leader at VEC. “Deferring or avoiding grid upgrades will help us keep our rates affordable for members and open up new opportunities for investments that bolster grid reliability and resilience, such as undergrounding.”
To address this infrastructure investment challenge, VEC partnered with Camus to build the data foundation for a future-ready grid. Rather than starting with a traditional Edge DERMS—which can be used to dispatch groups of DERs but requires the utility to manually identify which DERs are downline from constraints—VEC prioritized a platform that could both detect grid constraints and deliver targeted flexibility where it's needed.
Camus stood out for its platform’s ability to analyze utility GIS, SCADA, and AMI data to identify pinch points and determine which DERs are positioned to help. The platform uses machine learning to fill in gaps in utility data and correct errors in a utility’s connectivity models, providing a physics-informed, yet data-driven approach to monitoring and forecasting grid conditions.
Camus' platform then uses its understanding of grid needs to provide standardized signals to Edge DERMS or third-party aggregators. These signals include both operating envelopes, which constrain DER behavior to keep stress on utility equipment within manageable ranges, and dispatch events, which incentivize grid-supporting behavior in exchange for a reward – such as reducing demand during systems peaks in exchange for bill credits. VEC recognized that Camus’ grid-aware approach to signaling DERMS, along with the platform’s ability to directly control individual, large-scale DERs, would provide a robust foundation for its long-term vision.
Moreover, VEC saw value in going beyond DERMS-specific functionality. Grid-edge data has critical value for planning analyses and operational monitoring, not just dispatch. By prioritizing the data foundation first, Camus enables DERMS signaling while supporting broader use cases—like flexible interconnection and advanced grid planning—with a single, extensible platform.
Through integrating DER and utility data into a single interface, the platform provides visibility and tools to coordinate DERs in a way that makes better use of existing infrastructure. Importantly, the same platform that supports grid-aware flexibility at the residential level today can be extended to manage interconnections for larger loads and generation in the future.
“Like many utilities, our internal teams—power supply, engineering, control center, and DER programs—have historically worked with their own datasets in silos,” said Brunner. “The grid orchestration platform is a ‘single pane of glass’ that breaks down these silos. Everyone sees a consistent view of the grid and makes decisions based on the same integrated datasets. We believe intelligent DER management will be an integral part of future grid operations, and the platform can enable that.”
For VEC, an early step was to use the platform to experiment with DER management pilots and use learnings to inform the design of future member programs. A 2024 pilot focused on the transformer-constrained dispatch of residential EV charging—a practical application that reduces charging load during key periods to avoid transformer overloading.
The approach takes advantage of the inherent flexibility of home EV charging. Often, EV owners plug in when they get home from work and need the car charged by morning. Because charging typically only requires 2-3 hours, it is often possible to shift timing or reduce power without impacting customer routines.
Camus deployed several foundational capabilities to enable this pilot:
With these tools in place, the platform calculated an operating envelope—a forecast-based maximum charging level that would keep transformer load below critical thresholds. This envelope was recalculated hourly based on forecasted net load, charger locations, and transformer ratings.
In October 2024, VEC and Camus tested the operating envelope on a ChargePoint EV charger at a member's home. Over five days, the platform calculated operating limits and curtailed the charger during peak loading hours, successfully preventing transformer overload while fully charging the EV by morning. The member did not notice any impact.
On the fifth day, the team layered the operating envelope with a simulated Vermont RNS demand response event. The platform curtailed the charger to zero during the peak event and resumed charging at the transformer-constrained limit once the event ended. This demonstrated that multiple control signals can be effectively coordinated to capture both local and system-level value.
“Overall, the tests were successful,” said Brunner. “We showed that the technology works. It prevented the transformer from being overloaded, and there was no impact on the member’s daily life.”
VEC plans to prioritize future deployments in parts of its system where modest overloads are occurring on relatively modern infrastructure. By managing just a few critical hours of overload, the utility can defer major upgrades and stretch its capital investments further.
“This tool may not be applicable to the vintage 1930s poles and wires in our system,” said Brunner. “Because of their age and condition, they have little deferral value and may be great candidates for upgrade investments as more EVs come on the system. Where I see a big opportunity is the lines in our system that have been upgraded in the last 20-40 years. They’re in great condition and are getting overloaded for just a handful of hours. So why don’t we fix that handful of hours?”
VEC is targeting a program launch in Summer 2025, specifically targeting efforts to prolong the life of transformers that are currently subject to 150% or higher overloading for >2% of the year (per IEEE C57.91 guidelines).
Going forward, Camus and VEC will continue expanding DER management capabilities on the same foundational platform. This includes developing grid-aware management of additional DER types like residential batteries and rooftop solar, supporting management for other grid constraints like voltage, and exploring opportunities to use the same underlying grid awareness and operating envelope technologies to enable flexible interconnections for larger-scale resources. Camus and VEC are working together to tackle the evolving challenges of the energy transition, bringing both technical innovation and creative thinking to the table.
“What’s been great about collaborating with the Camus team is that they come from diverse professional backgrounds—the utility business plus many other industries,” said Brunner. “They’re passionate about what they do and ask great questions that make us think outside the box. This is a time, in my view, where the strategies of traditional software vendors aren’t going to meet the future needs of utilities. It’s a time for creative new solutions, and Camus has been a great partner for that.”
