SMUD engaged IEC Corporation to complete its Renewable Generation Research, Development & Demonstration (ReGen) Program Final Report to detail the utility’s research project aimed at meeting State energy goals. The ReGen Program was part of the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program. The SMUD ReGen Program consisted of 24 projects based around four emphasis areas: Assessing and Targeting Renewable Electricity Development; Increasing Affordability by Improving Existing Facilities; Expanding Affordability and Diversity Using Renewable Distributed Technologies; and Developing Renewable Technologies for Tomorrow’s Electricity System. These projects focused on photovoltaic, concentrating solar, biomass, and wind technologies.

Because of IEC’s past experience and success with a wide range of renewable energy projects, SMUD requested that IEC summarize the various technologies and reports to make them more easily understandable to the layperson. IEC prepared a condensed compendium of the 24 project final reports into a Program Final Report that tied these reports together, explained the relevance of these projects in meeting the State’s energy goals, provided recommendations, discussed local and policy effects, and gave an outlook for the future.

IEC utilized the PIER style guide to create the final report template. From this basis, IEC’s technical writers used the final report outlines as a guide in further developing the template to create a “roadmap” and main document for the report. The Program Final Report was the product of work from a number of authors, and as such, the compilation and draft process was significant in generating a report that was clear, concise, easy to understand, and easy to read, as well as stylistically correct based on the PIER Style Manual. The IEC team went through every submitted report, gleaning pertinent information from each to include in the final report. The report was submitted to SMUD and the Energy Commission and was given very positive feedback.