The federal government has been driving the process to develop
an interconnected standard to establish the criteria and
requirements of distributed generation (also called distributed
resources or dispersed generation) to be connected into the
utility-owned electric power grid. With the weight of the
Department of Energy (DOE), Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC), and National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) behind it, an
IEEE standards group has been working at a furious pace to
develop the standard for such. The committee consists of a
balanced group of 150+ members from the categories of “user,”
“producer,” and “general interest,” translated as utilities,
manufacturers of DG and the curious. Begun in April 1999, IEEE
P1547 Draft Standard for Interconnecting Distributed Resources
with Electric Power Systems had its first ballot in October
2001. After a number of revisions and re-balloting, it is just
about ready to go. The document provides a uniform standard for
the interconnection of distributed resou