Ameren Corporation and Opus One Solutions recently announced their decision to work together to test a transactive energy marketplace (TEM) and evaluate the use of Blockchain ledger systems. The marketplace will build on the technologically advanced, utility-scale microgrid in Illinois and Opus One’s GridOS platform. St. Louis-based Ameren Corporation is a diversified regional electric and gas utility that serves 2.4 million electric customers and more than 900,000 natural gas customers through its Ameren Missouri and Ameren Illinois subsidiaries. The TEM will be located at Ameren Illinois' award-winning Technology Applications Center (TAC), one of the only utility-scale microgrids in the nation capable of serving live (paying) customer loads on an actual utility distribution feeder.
"Identifying the value local distributed energy resources (DER) can provide to our distribution system and the customers it serves, helps inform how and where customers should invest in clean renewable power," said Ron Pate, senior vice president of operations and technical services with Ameren Illinois. "Transactive energy markets will ensure that distributed energy resources are compensated appropriately, for the services that they provide."
DERs are fundamentally changing energy supply and demand wherever they are located. Their presence and capabilities create the opportunity for new utility operational and business models based on a platform approach to the grid-DER relationship. The objective of the platform is to strengthen the relationships between the utility and its newly empowered consumers. Richmond, Canada-based Opus One’s GridOS platform helps to identify the value each microgrid DER provides to the local distribution feeder and the customers that it supplies, bringing wholesale market constructs to the grid edge.
“We are very pleased to be working with such an innovative partner, to unlock the value of DER for their customers,” said Joshua Wong, CEO of Opus One Solutions. “It's very exciting to see the interest in and growth of transactive energy for both customer and utility benefit.” The collaboration between Ameren and Opus One will make it possible to assess various valuations and use cases for locational value of DER at the grid edge. “Assessing how each DER provides value through system optimization using Opus One’s GridOS, while identifying the potential for similar markets near the microgrid and across the distribution system is first of its kind in North America,” said Hari Subramaniam, chief of strategic growth, Opus One Solutions.
