Does it make any sound if a utility pole is dropped in a forest, but no energy company employee is there to hear it? The answer to this question is currently no. Utility companies are primarily reliant on customers to report outages. Also, they need to find out if your home is powered on. Solar customers must also learn how much power their system produces and feeds into the grid. Utility companies are in the dark about how much energy their customers use or generate in real time until they read the meters.
SunShot Initiative of the Energy Department is working to solve this problem for utilities and customers. A funding opportunity Enabling Extreme-Real-Time Grid Integration of Solar Energy (ENERGISE) recently announced focuses on the development tools that will enable utilities to gain visibility into the distribution networks–down to the solar energy systems that are feeding the grid. It is an excellent opportunity for solution providers and utilities to collaborate closely to develop tools to enable millions of more distributed energy systems to be connected to the grid.
This level of visibility is a huge benefit for utilities. They would be able not only to make faster decisions to match supply and demand but also to react to storms or other disruptions in the grid before they become a problem. The operational planning tools envisioned for the ENERGISE fund-raising opportunity could reduce the outage time and the number of customers affected by an unexpected event. This would increase grid resilience. Planning new distributed solar power generators accurately and reliably could also eliminate the need for new conventional power plants, saving millions in capital costs.
These tools will also help utilities meet renewable portfolio standards set by states such as California. The state aims to generate 50% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. A large part of this will come from small distributed solar systems. In a scenario with millions of solar projects, the existing method for bringing solar into the grid – conducting an interconnection and screening each project for grid impact – is unrealistic. Grid operators must find new ways to address these challenges and modernize operations. To maintain reliability, planning and integration tools must be accurate and real-time. They also need to be able to work on a large scale. ENERGISE aims to create this future.