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Laboratory experiments will validate solutions for safely scaling the number of electric vehicles on the grid.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected two new projects to benefit from a premier grid control capability at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). One of these projects comes from Colorado Springs Utilities leveraging Strata Grid, a DERMS tool from Smarter Grid Solutions (SGS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc. The project intends to run real-time simulations of blue and black sky scenarios to show how SGS’s Strata Grid DERMS platform can manage and optimize the charging of Electric Vehicles (EVs), including vehicle-to-grid capable school buses as well as consumer EVs.
This project will deliver learnings from the implementation of controls in a realistic laboratory test bed at NREL, specifically from the integration of microgrid controls with a DERMS, that will be shared with, and beneficial to, the wider industry. Further, results from real-time simulations of the Mesa Campus microgrid’s substation service areas will provide insights directly applicable to potential future field implementation.
The team will demonstrate ways distribution utilities can adapt 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, a safe environment to de-risk and build confidence in interconnecting new technologies to the power system. Partners experiment with plug-and-play options in the lab before deployment in the field.
“NREL helps our utility partners answer targeted questions about control architectures and their scalability ,” said chief engineer Annabelle Pratt. “I am very excited to work on these EV use cases, since (…) Colorado Springs Utilities proposed compelling questions about the future electrical grid that we are primed to answer with the ADMS Test Bed.”
Here is how it works: NREL develops a real-time model of a portion of a utility’s service area including current and projected deployments of distributed energy resources, such as energy storage systems or renewable energy generation. The model couples with real examples of these devices in the laboratory and engineers evaluate the performance of a grid control solutions under simulated scenarios. 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 Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES).
Electric Vehicles and Microgrids in Colorado Springs, Colorado
The second partner, Colorado Springs Utilities, is interested in exploring how the electric grid can best accommodate increased demand from electric vehicles and charging stations.
Springs Utilities will partner with NREL to test a section of their grid where a small-scale microgrid is planned for their Mesa Campus, which includes renewable energy sources such as solar, battery energy storage systems, and a public EV charging station. The hope is to 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.
To do this, Springs Utilities is teaming up with NREL to use their Smarter Grid Solutions Strata Grid technology to test different scenarios to help Springs Utilities assess scenarios of high demand on the grid.
Brett Jackson, the microgrid project manager at Springs Utilities, is excited about the collaboration.
“We believe that the insights gained from these simulations will help us better prepare for the future,” says Jackson. “This information will help ensure that we’re making informed decisions about energy resilience in Colorado Springs and how we can best invest customers’ rate dollars in our electric grid.”
Jon Grooters, Director of Utility Solutions, Pacific Region at SGS said:
“We're excited to continue to work with NREL in moving the industry forward with novel approaches to the changing utility landscape. It is always great when we can bring these solutions to meet real challenges and having Colorado Springs Utilities providing insight on their near term and future goals will be very impactful to the project.”
Learn about NREL’s platform for Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) and the lab’s
sustainable transportation and mobility research, including its focus on electric vehicle grid integration.
