The US Energy Department’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has granted $33m in funding for 12 new projects to develop technologies for improving the efficiency and reliability of the electric grid.
The 12 projects will be developed as part of ARPA-E’s Network Optimized Distributed Energy Systems (NODES) program, which intends to develop technologies which can manage load and generation on the electric grid to create a virtual energy storage system.
ARPA-E director Dr Ellen Williams said: "The NODES program continues ARPA-E’s commitment to investing in technologies that can provide options for our energy infrastructure and its arising operational challenges.
"The research and development of these grid control technologies will make the concept of virtual energy storage a practical reality.
ARPA-E expects the result of NODES program to enhance the resiliency, security and flexibility of nation’s electric grid.
The funding will be used by the teams to develop new hardware and software solutions with potential to integrate and coordinate generation, transmission, and end-use energy systems at various points on the electric grid.
In addition to allowing real-time coordination between distributed generation, the control systems would ease periods of costly peak demand, reduce wasted energy, and increase renewables power transmission on the grid.
The selected projects include University of Vermont’s Packetized Energy Management: Coordinating Transmission and Distribution which aims to develop and test a new approach for demand-side management called packetized energy management (PEM).
Additionally, University of California’s Distributed Grid Control of Flexible Loads and DERs for Optimized Provision of Synthetic Regulating Reserves project has been selected.
The project is intended to develop coordination algorithms and software using intelligent control and optimization for flexible load and DERs in order to provide reliable frequency regulation services for the bulk power grid.
One of the other selected projects includes Arizona State University’s Stochastic Optimal Power Flow for Real-Time Management of Distributed Renewable Generation and Demand Response.
This project involves development of a stochastic optimal power flow (SOPF) framework. This will integrate uncertainty from renewable resources, load, distributed storage, and demand response technologies into bulk power system.