The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) has selected the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to provide technical assistance with integrating distributed energy resources (DERs) in Colorado, Massachusetts, and Virginia to make the electric grids safer and more responsive, resilient, and affordable.
OCED's Distributed Energy Systems (DES) Demonstrations Program aims to support diverse, scalable, replicable clean energy projects. OCED has announced up to $50 million for three energy projects that are designed to implement distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS).
DERMS help manage both the growing demand for electricity in between the electrification of buildings, vehicles, and industrial processes and the installation of DERs like solar photovoltaic units, battery storage, smart appliances, and other technologies.
NREL's technical assistance includes access to facilities like the Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) research platform, which is designed to validate strategies for securely controlling large numbers of interconnected devices.
The three demonstrations will leverage an ARIES research powerhouse called the Advanced Distribution Management Systems Test Bed for utility partners to use a safe laboratory environment and evaluate advanced grid controls to benefit their systems.
"ARIES will be used to prove what is possible for widespread integration of DERs, with customized R&D conditions based on the needs and opportunities of the energy system for each project," said Jennifer Kurtz, director of NREL's ARIES and the Center for Energy Conversion and Storage Systems.
The three projects selected for award negotiation include:
- GRid Integration and Demonstration of FLEXible Energy Resources (GRID-FLEXER) in Suffolk, Virginia
GRID-FLEXER, led by Virginia Electric and Power Company (d/b/a Dominion Energy Virginia), plans to demonstrate a DERMS in Virginia's south-eastern region. The project aims to coordinate the area's current DERs with control software. Leveraging these DERs, Dominion Energy Virginia will optimize and manage the 150 MW of clean energy derived from these resources to provide real-time safe, reliable, and affordable grid support and capacity, particularly during high demand and peak load events, all without costly grid upgrades.
Dominion Energy Virginia hopes for wider implementation across its service territory, ensure consistent power delivery and cost-effective clean energy integration, and provide a replicable model for future implementation across utility providers and diverse service territories.
- Outer Cape Microgrid Optimization (OCMO) From Orleans to Provincetown, Massachusetts
The OCMO project, led by Eversource Energy, aims to implement a DERMS to improve regional energy reliability and resiliency in the Cape Cod, Massachusetts area. Cape Cod customers are vulnerable to power outages caused by New England's increasingly frequent and extreme weather.
The DERMS would coordinate customer-owned DERs with an existing 24.9-MW BESS owned by Eversource serving as the main resource for the current microgrid in the area. The project will enhance the existing regional microgrid with a DERMS capable of dispatching customer-owned clean energy to extend the duration of its operation for customer resilience.
- Prime Time Virtual Power Plant in Boulder, Colorado
The Prime Time Virtual Power Plant project, led by Xcel Energy Services, will develop and integrate a virtual power plant (VPP) in the Boulder, Colorado area. The project will deliver clean energy to customers, without building new power plants or transmission lines, by combining the DERs of participating consumers and using them to balance, optimize, and shift electrical loads, minimizing upgrades and costs for customers.
The project is expected to help Boulder achieve its 100% renewable electricity goal by 2030. The implementation of the proposed VPP offers a scalable solution to be applied to the remaining multistate grid of Xcel Energy, providing operational flexibility to enable the power system to respond efficiently to changes in supply and demand, anticipated to be replicated across the industry.
