Market leading Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) software company Smarter Grid Solutions (SGS) today unveiled ANM Strata 2.0, the next generation of its award winning flagship product, following successful on-grid deployments and pilot projects in the US, UK and Germany.
ANM Strata 2.0 is the most widely deployed and versatile DERMS on the market, with enhanced tools for data analytics, visualisation and application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow it to connect to many other software systems at utilities and the operators of DER. With rapidly increasing demand for renewable energy, electric vehicles and energy storage, ANM Strata 2.0 promises to accelerate the transformation of distribution network operators into distribution system operators (DSOs).
SGS has pioneered an approach to DERMS that is unique in the market, with over ten years of full commercial deployments on multiple continents. The pioneering approach to ANM permits a layered approach to DERMS that means ANM Strata 2.0 can continue to manage the system and maximise grid access for DER without being susceptible to the data issues that so often encumber other more traditional approaches and result in reduced grid access for DER.
Significantly, ANM Strata 2.0 allows existing SGS customers to improve the financial returns from their DERMS software by deploying a range of control methods across multiple timeframes to manage any type of DER. It also features new DER optimisation, scheduling and dispatch capabilities, as well as online load flow calculations for auto-configuration of real-time algorithms. No other DERMS product on the market has these capabilities or has been tried and tested so extensively in real commercial deployments.
According to Dr Bob Currie, Chief Technology Officer at Smarter Grid Solutions: “Distribution System Operators need reliable and proven solutions that can flex to meet local and system-wide needs as more and more DER comes online, while ensuring seamless interoperability with existing systems. ANM Strata 2.0 provides the desired modularity and scalability, which positions it as the cornerstone for DERMS across the enterprise of the distribution utility.”
The features in ANM Strata 2.0 support the development of new business models and innovative customer propositions for the owners and operators of DER and for new markets at the distribution level, such as DER flexibility services. ANM Strata 2.0 can also now be deployed to the cloud to manage behind the meter resources for utilities or DER operators and aggregators, providing an end-to-end platform for distributed energy.
All of these capabilities are leading International utilities to select ANM Strata as their platform for enterprise DERMS.
ANM Strata 2.0 is already used by UK distribution network operator, UK Power Networks, for dynamic hosting capacity through Flexible Connections for DER and to establish Flexibility Services markets targeted at specific locations and regions of the distribution system. UK Power Networks is deploying ANM Strata across London and the South-East of England, with a population of around 20million and a diverse mix of urban and rural networks. Also in the UK, Western Power Distribution (WPD) has deployed ANM Strata across its entire license area as the basis for offering Flexible Connections to DER looking to connect to constrained parts of the distribution network.
In North America, the DERMS software is being used to optimise utility-scale front of the meter batteries in New York City to provide distribution services to Con Edison. ANM Strata 2.0 is also being used to manage demand response and behind the meter DER via OpenADR and Sunspec Modbus to coordinate and dispatch residential solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries and thermostats at a confidential utility. In another deployment in Canada, ANM Strata 2.0 is providing the basis for non-wires solutions to load growth through targeted demand response using DER.
Smarter Grid Solutions has spent the past decade refining and advancing its software from its R&D Labs in Glasgow and New York City, applying the experience of integrating with all types of DER and a multiple of different applications for network management and market integration.
Dr Bob Currie, Chief Technology Officer at Smarter Grid Solutions, continues: “We’ve taken the layered DERMS concept to a whole new level and are proud to be the only vendor able to demonstrate full commercial deployment of this approach. The push to connect DER is gathering pace with targets for 100% clean energy being introduced in many of our core markets, ANM Strata 2.0 provides a proven and ready platform for the DSO transition to realise these goals.”
About SGS
Smarter Grid Solutions (SGS) is a leading provider of distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) software with the company about to exceed 1.3GW of renewable generation, energy storage and flexible load under control through 2019. With offices in New York, Glasgow, London and San Francisco, SGS is a global solutions provider to distribution utilities and distributed energy resource operators.