🌐 Plugged In: DER people Meet-Up - Adam Morse Creates a Mental Model for How the Grid is Planned

Join us at 9Zero for a casual meetup on microgrids and distributed energy resources (DERs) — solar, storage, VPPs, demand response, and more. Whether you’re building projects or just starting to learn, you’re welcome to join us. Adam Morse is an electrical engineer and independent software developer. Since February 2026 he has been building an open-source modeling environment for distributed energy resources (DER), bringing the best open-source DER tools into a single end-to-end workflow that connects site-level modeling to distribution system analysis. Because the tool aspires to be foundational open-source infrastructure for utility planning, Adam will present his mental model of how the grid is planned, and how it could be planned, in an era of significant disruption. The presentation is anchored by the Energy Systems Integration Group's 2025 Integrated Planning reports and uses Puget Sound Energy's 2021 Integrated Resource Plan as a worked example. He'll close by placing his own work in that framework: the seam between customer program planning and distribution modeling, and what closing it would take. This is a model under construction, so bring your questions and pushback. Here’s the agenda: Mingling, Name Tags + Snacks Welcome + Intros 30 minute - Adam's Presentation 10 min - Q&A 30 minutes - Small Group Chats – what technologies are you experimenting with? Where are you getting stuck? What trends or partnerships are you tracking?