Smarter, stronger, greener: Gridspertise on transforming the U.S. power grid for a sustainable future

The electric power distribution system in the U.S. has over 5.5 million line-miles with over 180 million power poles, all of which are susceptible to damage by weather and its effects, and account for a majority of power outages in the country. Climate-change fueled extreme weather events are increasing the frequency and intensity of blackouts across the U.S., harming communities and disrupting livelihoods.

The U.S. electric system is undergoing significant change due to a range of drivers, including the evolution of federal, state, and local policies addressing climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as an increasingly diverse and distributed set of electricity resources and the addition of devices capable of providing a great deal of data.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is making critical investments in the electric grid to lower the cost of energy, while enabling utilities to achieve resource adequacy and clean energy targets. Last year, in the largest grid investment in history, the DOE announced up to $3.46 billion for 58 projects across 44 states to strengthen electric grid resilience and reliability across the United States, all while improving climate resilience and creating good-paying union jobs. Across the selected projects, there are various strategies to increase the integration of renewables, in total allowing more than 35 gigawatts of clean energy to be brought online and expanding the country’s renewable energy capacity by 10.5%. The projects also will enhance grid flexibility, meaning that operators can balance different types of power in real-time and in response to real conditions to help keep the power on and prices affordable.

Upgrading infrastructure with smart grid modernization like smart meters, advanced sensors, and real-time monitoring systems can improve flexibility and manage variability. The benefits of smart technologies extend beyond mere data collection, they empower grid operators with real-time insights, enabling them to adjust and optimize the grid dynamically, manage variability effectively, and ultimately deliver a more reliable and efficient electricity supply.

The challenges 

Last January, a massive winter storm hit the eastern half of the country leaving approximately 811,000 homes and businesses in 12 states without power. In February 2021, Winter Storm Uri left half a million people in Texas powerless.
 
To tackle the unpredictable nature of extreme weather, updated and disaster response plans are needed and integrating renewable sources can play a vital role in ensuring grid stability and supply-demand balance. Perhaps, the biggest issue is on the medium voltage and low voltage networks, since grid operators have fewer tools for monitoring and controlling in comparison to high voltage ones.

Distribution networks are facing significant issues related to extreme weather conditions and the growth of distributed energy resources (DERs), which are straining the grid’s resilience and reliability.

Impact of DER penetration and electrification on the power grid 

The adoption of distributed energy resources (DER) in the United States is uneven: in some areas they have been significantly embraced, while in others they have a very low percentage. This is true even within states or utility service areas. This patchwork of adoption is driven by technological cost-effectiveness, local economic factors, consumer interest, and grid integration considerations.

Although DER penetration is unequal across the country, distributed energy resources are testing grids and utilities are systematically trying to figure out how to upgrade certain parts of the grid under immense budgetary constraints.
 
Furthermore, since DERs are inverter-based technologies, they can have an additional grid impact related to harmonic distortion, which can impact power quality when not properly managed.

The key benefits of Gridspertise Distributed Intelligence Ecosystem 

The challenges for grids are constantly evolving. While resilience is a top priority now, flexibility, low voltage (LV) monitoring and control will be key in the future.
 
The first step to achieving flexibility is improving observability for grid operators. Real-time visibility enables complete control over medium and low voltage grids, but also scalability plays a pivotal role. At Gridspertise, we offer a solution portfolio, which is tailor-made for electrical utilities. Our ecosystem utilizes distributed intelligence across the grid to enhance resilience and ensure a future-proof architecture to manage with challenges related to DER penetration and network congestion.

In our company, we provide a suite of solutions designed to provide utilities with tools to manage the aforementioned issues. These include edge computing devices for substations and distribution transformers, edge applications that provide real-time monitoring and control, and, finally, cloud software involving a low voltage SCADA system, and an advanced FLISR (Fault Location Isolation and Service Restoration) system.

“These tools provide an immediate way to address the problems that grid operators face today, but also supply flexibility to tackle future challenges in a cost-effective way”, adds Micheal Yellin, Key Account Manager AMERICAS at Gridspertise. 

How edge computing solutions help U.S. utilities

When it comes to DERs, utilities face several hurdles, on both the integration and management side. Front-of-the-meter (FTM) distributed energy resources need a reliable control system to mitigate great congestion according to the grid’s overall status. On the other hand, behind-the-meter (BTM) DERs are not standardized in terms of functionalities and protocols, so there is a complex environment to orchestrate. In this scenario, our Quantum Edge® device, QEd, can harmonize the BTM DER interface and seamlessly integrate with any central system such as DERMS (Distributed Energy Resources Management System).
 
“Most importantly – adds Damiano Bracci, Sales and Product Marketing Manager at Gridspertise – the QEd can achieve real-time control over several DERs, emulating a kind of virtual control room on the edge to run clusterized network areas and virtual power plants, while load shedding, islanding monitoring, and microgrid control are some of the use cases we are working on. The cooperation with a strong partner network can come in aid: managing the stream of data will be about taking control over the DERs and acting on the edge instead of relying only on the central system.”

Grid automation management: Quantum Edge® device 

QEd’s peripheral devices are critical for distributed intelligence. Even during outages where there is no communication with the central systems, the QEd can perform all its functionalities on the edge avoiding any negative grid impacts. An example of this is the advanced FLISR module. Once all the QEds in the network have been initialized and configured using our Grid Automation Manager software, they can control the grid and ensure proper reconfiguration even in the absence of central system communication. Additionally, because of the distributed intelligence, operation latency is significantly reduced.

QEd: Use cases

The QEd represents major advancements in terms of operational efficiency, by reducing the maintenance associated costs, due to its remote device management platform and the firmware modularity coming from the virtualization platform.

We are also running pilot projects to manage the electrical grid on geographical islands completely disconnected from mainland grids, which is a situation in fact very similar to the intentional and unintentional electrical islanding. In this scenario, a network of QEds is orchestrating DERs and traditional general plants to ensure stability and provide dynamic control over the grid frequency and power reserve.

Another high-impact use is the fine voltage control: the OLTC, On-Load Tap Changers. Based on previous projects carried out, our company is now working on new algorithms to create an innovative edge application for the QEd in which the real-time status of the grid and data gathered from smart meters will be merged to calculate an optimal voltage operating point directly on the edge and operate On-Load Tap Changers. The main goal is to help utilities to manage growth of DERs and avoid transmission and distribution investments.

In addition, the QEd enables self-healing, allowing fast-network reconfiguration in less than one second. These systems have a proven impact on reducing SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index).

Furthermore, we recently presented a smaller form factor of the QEd designed for utilities who need an effortless, integrated solution for low-voltage management, incorporating in one single solution several use cases related to the MV/LV distribution substation.

The future challenges for the U.S. grids and the role of the QEd

We showcased the QEd in the latest edition of DISTRIBUTECH International, the event focused on transmission and distribution and the cutting-edge technologies that generate homes and businesses. At DISTRIBUTECH International, we presented our new Virtualization and Edge Processing Platform for MV and LV Grid Automation, an ecosystem of solutions designed for cities, neighborhoods, homes, and isolated areas.

Because of its various applications and the range of benefits it provides to the network, the QEd is the perfect ally to meet the future challenges for the U.S. grids. It is an edge computing system where you can easily download new applications without adding further infrastructure, and so we can adapt to future grid challenges.

The QEd is a future-proof solution, providing an open environment for application developers and technology firms. We often compare our Quantum Edge® device to a smartphone, we believe that it will play a high-profile role for the whole grid community; utilities can indeed rely on external developers to design applications for any use case. This is one of the concepts behind the Co-Creation program, which is our way to engage and involve utility technology firms, application developers, and partners to build up an entire community and, hopefully, pave the way for the next smart grid era.

(This article was featured in Renewable Energy World)

About the authors
Damiano Bracci works in Gridspertise’s Marketing Team and is currently managing the Network Solution offer portfolio including the QEd ecosystem. Damiano is an Electrical Engineer with a Master Degree at University “La Sapienza” of Rome. After graduating he joined Schneider Electric as Marketing Offer Manager for their augmented reality platform for MV/LV substations. In Schneider Electric he then became Marketing Offer Manager for Protection relays and RTUs in the Power System division gaining technical skills and marketing strategies proficiencies to address national and international markets for Grid digitalization.

Michael Yellin works in Gridspertise’s AMERICAS Sales team, developing grid-edge and digitalization solutions for distribution utilities to improve resilience and flexibility. He also facilitates the sharing of grid modernization best practices between North America and Europe. Prior to joining Gridspertise, Michael spent over a decade at SunPower and NovaSource Power Services, focused on operations of utility scale and distributed solar and storage projects. He has a B.S. and M.S. in Structural Engineering from The Cooper Union in New York and a M.B.A. with a concentration in Energy Finance from the University of Texas in Austin.