The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected two projects to benefit from a premier grid control evaluation capability at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
While one project from Dominion Energy will use Generac Grid Solutions’ technology, the second one from Colorado Springs Utilities leverages software from Smarter Grid Solution, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Electric Power Products.
The teams will demonstrate adoption methods for distribution utilities as more of their customers drive and charge electric vehicles (EVs), adding load to the grid. The demonstrations will use NREL’s Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) Test Bed in interconnecting new technologies to the power system.
The ADMS Test Bed was developed by NREL with funding from the DOE Office of Electricity as a vendor-neutral evaluation platform and is a foundational capability for NREL’s Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES).
NREL develops a real-time model of a portion of a utility’s service area including current and projected deployments of distributed energy resources. The model combines with real examples of these devices in the laboratory, and engineers evaluate the performance of grid control solutions under simulated scenarios.
Dominion Energy is deploying Generac’s Concerto distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) across its service territory in Virginia and North Carolina to support EV owners and electric school buses, as well as customers with solar photovoltaics, battery storage, and other DER technologies.
“NREL’s ADMS Test Bed provides a realistic environment in which to demonstrate the ability of the DERMS to manage EV charging in real time and thereby de-risk our field deployment,” said Santosh Veda, manager of DERMS at Dominion Energy. “DERMS deployment is an important part of Dominion’s Grid Transformation Plan for meeting the trend of increased electrification.”
The test bed will model a substation service area in Suffolk, Virginia, and an accurate representation of its energy load. NREL experts will help Dominion Energy and Generac examine two grid control architectures for EV charging management using the Generac DERMS and multiple EV aggregators.
On the other hand, Colorado Springs Utilities will explore ways for the electric grid to accommodate increased demand from electric vehicles and charging stations.
Springs Utilities will partner with NREL to test a section of its grid where a small-scale microgrid is planned for its Mesa Campus, which includes renewable energy sources such as solar, battery energy storage systems, and a public EV charging station. This will help determine the impacts additional energy demands, like EV charging stations, have on the microgrid and surrounding community and to test backup plans in case of power disruptions.
Springs Utilities will use Smarter Grid Solutions’ Strata Grid technology to test different scenarios to help the utility assess scenarios of high demand on the grid.
