DERs are power assets located throughout your co-op’s territory, owned either by your members or by your co-op directly. They can be traditional assets like natural gas and diesel generators, battery energy storage, or renewable resources like solar and wind.

A DERMS is the technology that ties these resources together, providing visibility across the system and allowing your co-op to dispatch resources when needed. Advanced solutions go further, monitoring grid conditions in real time and triggering assets automatically when every minute counts. Some also track asset health remotely, so you know your DERs are ready before they’re called upon, when it matters the most. 

How can your co-op put these building blocks to work in an affordable way? It helps to think about resiliency in levels.

Level one starts with the assets already in your community. Member-owned generators, batteries, and solar arrays can become part of your emergency response program. By signing up members and integrating their DERs into your system, you unlock capacity when the grid is strained.

Level two is adding your own generation or storage at strategic points in the distribution system. These assets strengthen local capacity during disasters, and they can also create everyday savings:

• Dispatch them to avoid peak charges when wholesale prices surge. 
• Protect against price volatility with the ability to self-supply during high-cost periods.

The result is a system that not only supports members when the worst happens but also lowers day-to-day energy costs. Reliability and resiliency together become a shield for the community and a strategy for affordability.

As severe weather events grow more frequent, the time to add resiliency is now. Whether your co-op is just beginning to plan or already has projects underway, the challenge is finding a way to strengthen your system in a manner that fits your community and your budget.

That’s where the right energy advisor makes the difference – bringing together not just generation assets but also advanced management technology, financing options, and the expertise to design an integrated approach.

Caterpillar offers exactly that, with a full range of solutions: diesel and natural gas generator sets, microgrid solutions, battery energy storage systems, and a DERMS platform called Cat^® AMP. It monitors energy prices, predicts peaks, dispatches resources automatically when costs surge or emergencies arise, and provides real-time performance reporting. Across the country, Cat AMP is already helping co-ops and other customers achieve resiliency while delivering energy savings of up to 20%.

The next storm will come. With the right approach – and the right advisor – your co-op can weather it confidently, keeping members safe and energy costs under control.