Energy producers and operators are at a pivotal point as they grapple with ways to address the shifting economics of energy production. Today, the cost to produce green energy is now lower than that of traditional fossil fuels. This change has resulted in the introduction of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) into existing operations. As utilities shift from centralized power generation models to complex, distributed ones, they need a new distributed power control architecture that can simultaneously accommodate DER and legacy systems. This will require new control methods, new communication means, new operational parameters and more.