Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Lafarge: Urban space constraints force grid capacity onto customer sites

Pierre Lafarge · Making DERs work for load growth · Jan 9, 2025 · at 14:16

Pierre Lafarge, CEO of Sparkfund, explains why physical constraints in metropolitan areas necessitate placing battery storage and solar on customer-owned buildings.

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“The real reason that a distributed capacity procurement focuses more on customer cited assets Than just size format is actually a pretty pragmatic reason, which is in a lot of the places of the grid where you need the capacity, there just isn't space to put that many assets unless you use customer. Addresses, right? You sort of have to. It's like if you look at a downtown in Atlanta or Minneapolis, the place you could put batteries that is relevant to the distribution grid is on or around buildings.”

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