The Argentina Ministry of Energy and Mines has signed with Innovari, Inc. to support a national pilot project that will demonstrate aggregated dynamic capacity management and improve overall energy system efficiency. Argentina utility EPEC will host the capacity management technology that will be used in conjunction with public, commercial and industrial buildings to help meet electricity demand requirements in their service areas. The Ministry signed the letter after the Electric Distribution Association for Argentina (ADEERA) agreed to participate in the project.
The project will use the Innovari Interactive Energy Platform. The IEP system aggregates electricity capacity from various sources including distributed energy resources such as wind and solar, distributed generation, as well as capacity offered through commercial and industrial buildings. The IEP also enables customers greater control of specific loads in their buildings to increase their control over energy use in their facility.
“EPEC is one of the largest utilities in Argentina and they have partnered with Innovari to enable their project team to test the functionality of the IEP system in customer environments to help optimize the entire power grid,” said Patricio Testorelli, President & CEO of Innovari Latin America. “The IEP will help to improve system optimization and the process will also provide important insights for the utilities and the Ministry of Mines and Energy to consider appropriate business models that will help make edge of grid resources a key part of the solution for all utilities in Argentina in the future.”
A key focus of these pilot projects is to help determine the business model that will enable utilities to utilize this advanced technology throughout Argentina. They also seek to identify the regulatory changes that will be necessary for an expansion project. Today, the Argentina government takes responsibility for a significant portion of an end-user’s electric bill. The success of this program will help find ways to relieve the government of some of this responsibility.
This is the initial phase of a larger initiative. The pilot project is targeted to operate starting in 2017 and will continue for five months. The project team will then focus on an expansion project in early 2018.
