Share it Utilities' ability to protect reliability in today's rapid transition to variable, distributed generation faces two key barriers and regulators' help is needed to overcome them. Advanced demand response (DR) can use the flexibility of customer-owned technologies to meet the balancing challenges of the changing supply mix, regulators and utility executives agreed during an Oct. 20 symposium hosted by The Brattle Group. Utility pilots are revealing what works, but also showing how technology and incentive structures are keeping flexible loads, such as customer-owned solar and smart thermostats, from supporting reliability. "Load flexibility can shift energy use to when it costs less, shape energy use to match renewables' availability, and to allow them to meet other system needs," said Minnesota Public Service Matt Schuerger during the symposium. "And it can be a cost-effective solution for reliability by offsetting other investments in generation with lower-cost customer-owned distributed technologies."