Under the agreement, the team will collaborate with the Hawaiian electric companies to assess high penetration solar scenarios using advanced modeling and inverter testing at the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF).
The ESIF will feature broad array of capabilities and laboratories for energy integration research which include megawatt-scale power hardware-in-the-loop testing.
SolarCity and Hawaiian Electric will also perform trails, including the dynamics between inverter-based assets on a grid system, voltage regulation, and bi-directional power flows, at ESIF .
Load rejection over voltage (LRO) testing has already been completed by NREL while ground fault overvoltage testing will be completed shortly.
NREL Energy Systems Integration partnerships director Martha Symko-Davies said: "This capability will be used to help utilities evaluate the impact of distributed energy resources like solar technologies on distribution systems and help them find solutions to utilizing these technologies in a safe, reliable, and cost-effective manner at scale."
