Lake Saint Louis, Mo., Feb. 7, 2023 – National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC) has announced the launch of a DERMS Integration Partner Program that enables utility Members to effectively deploy distributed resource programs with their end consumers. The program allows NISC to seamlessly integrate existing NISC solutions with the leading providers of Distributed Energy Resource Management Systems (DERMS) to scale the deployment of these increasingly important resources.

“With the increased adoption of electric vehicles, solar panels and other DER assets in homes, NISC is committed to ensuring utilities are prepared to deliver strategic programs with their consumers and adapt to an evolving industry and technologies,” said David Bonnett, Vice President of Product for NISC. “For more than 50 years, we’ve supported our Members with the technology to adapt to industry changes. Adding the option for a fully integrated DERMS solution enables our Members to roll out these programs to meet their capacity needs and/or to align and partner with their G&T to meet these mission critical capacity objectives.”

The NISC DERMS Integration Partner Program utilizes newly released Application Programming Interfaces (API) that enable end-to-end integration with NISC’s enterprise applications that work with DERMS partners and NISC Members. Leaning on the experience and lessons learned from supporting Automated Meter Infrastructure (AMI) at more than 500 utilities across the United States led to identifying seven major integration points for the DERMS solution. These seven integration points will support nearly every NISC Member without custom integration. They also allow utilities to maintain the relationship with end-consumers related to DER programs while seamlessly leveraging DERMS energy supply optimization features.

“By identifying these integration points, we’re able to integrate with many of the leading DERMS providers to build a repeatable process that’s more affordable for our Members,” Bonnett said. “This process makes adoption easy and reduces the implementation cost and time for both NISC and the DERMS provider across our Membership.”

Bringing together several NISC solutions including iVUE Connect – Marketing, Multi-Channel Messenger, SmartHub, Meter Data Management and Business Intelligence and Reporting, the NISC DERMS integration solution can support the full DER Program lifecycle. From enrollment to communicating event notifications and collecting and reporting on various data points, the enterprise solution provides Members the opportunity to leverage existing workflows and applications to maximize their DER lifecycle from beginning to end.

NISC is finalizing details on working with several DERMS providers but is looking to integrate with more providers in the future. If you are interested in the NISC DERMS Integration Partner Program, please contact Walt Hillis at walt.hillis@nisc.coop.