DOE Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium (GMLC) - Awards

ANL

$4.75M proposed over three years

This project provides strategic vision for interoperability endorsed by stakeholders with tools to measure interoperability maturity and the progress of related investments. It prioritizes interoperability gaps and develops an overarching roadmap for stakeholder endorsement.

Join DOE’s project to Advance Interoperability 

$1M+ proposed over three years

Project 7: Southeast Consortium

Identify measurement requirements along with associated data management and communication systems to enable full visibility of grid system state. This methodology will include defining the grid state, developing a roadmap along with a framework to determine sensor allocation for optimal results.

ORNL, SRNL

University of Tennessee, EPB, Southern Company, TVA, UNC-Charlotte, Duke Energy, Santee Cooper, Clemson

$1M proposed over two years

Project 8: Industrial Microgrid Analysis and Design for Energy Security and Resiliency

Investigation, development, and analysis of the risks, costs, and benefits of a microgrid utilizing renewable energy systems at the UPS WorldPort and Centennial Hub facilities. Develop a roadmap to help industries evaluate microgrid adoption by defining institutional and regulatory challenges associated with development of industrial-based resilient systems. 

ORNL, SNL

United Parcel Service, Waste Management, Burns  McDonnell, Harshaw Trane, LG&E, State of Kentucky

$1M proposed over two years

Project 9: DER Siting and Optimization Tool for California

Deliver to stakeholders an integrated distributed resource planning and optimization platform, hosted online, able to identify meaningful behind-the-meter DER adoption patterns, potential microgrid sites and demand-side resources, and evaluate the impacts of high renewable penetration feeders on the distribution and transmission grid. 

ANL, BNL, LBNL, LLNL, NREL, SLAC

California PUC, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE), Metropolitan Council of Governments, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)

$1.3M proposed over two years

Project 10: Smart Reconfiguration of Idaho Falls Network

Improve physical security of the Idaho Falls distribution system by testing smart reconfiguration, intelligent DR utilizing loads as a resource, controlled islanding, black start procedures for emergency service, and resynchronization in the presence of DERs. 

PNNL, INL

Idaho Falls Power, Schweitzer Engineering Labs, Washington State University, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems

$1M proposed over two years

Project 11: Vermont Regional Partnership Enabling the Use of DER

Assist Vermont utilities in meeting the state's ambitious goal of obtaining 90% of its energy from renewable sources by 2050 through (1) DER integration, (2) DER control, (3) validation of wind and solar forecasting, and (4) techno-economic analysis of energy storage.

SNL, NREL, 

Green Mountain Power, Vermont Electric Cooperative, Vermont Electric Company, University of Vermont

$1M proposed over two years

Project 12: Grid Analysis and Design for Resiliency in New Orleans

Conduct technical evaluations to assess energy and critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, and to identify cost effective options to improve the resiliency of both the electrical grid infrastructure and the community.

SNL, LANL

City of New Orleans, Rockefeller Institute, Entergy, US Army Corps of Engineers

$1M proposed over two years

Project 13: Alaska Microgrid Partnership

Develop a design basis framework and programmatic approach to assist stakeholders in their efforts to reduce diesel fuel consumption by at least 50% in Alaska's remote microgrids without increasing system lifecycle costs, while improving overall system reliability, security, and resilience.

NREL, PNNL, LBNL, SNL

Alaska Energy Authority, University of Alaska- Fairbanks, University of Alaska- Anchorage, Renewable Energy Alaska Project, Intelligent Energy Systems

$1M proposed over two years

Project 14: Technical Support to the New York State REV Initiative

Provide objective Technical Assistance by a team of National Lab experts to NYS agencies and policy makers on significant policy issues including retail market design, rate design, customer engagement, utility planning/operations, DER integration, cyber security.

BNL, LBNL, PNNL, INL

NYSERDA, NY State Smart Grid Consortium, Modern Grid Solutions, ICF International, Regulatory Assistance Project

$1M proposed over two years

Project 15: Grid Frequency Support from Distributed Inverter-Based Resources in Hawaii
 

Develop, simulate, validate, and deploy practical solutions in Hawaii that enable distributed energy resources (DERs) to help mitigate bulk system frequency contingency events on the fastest time scale (milliseconds to seconds). Validate the ability of real hardware inverters to support grid frequency in an environment that emulates the dynamics of a HECO power system.

NREL, SNL
 

Hawaiian Electric Companies, Enphase Energy, Fronius USA, Forum on Inverter Grid Integration issues, Energy Excelerator

$1M proposed over two years
 

Convene industry and academic experts in power systems to evaluate the HVDC and AC transmission seams between the U.S. interconnections and propose upgrades to existing facilities that reduce the cost of modernizing the nation's power system. 

NREL, PNNL, ANL, ORNL
 

$1.2M proposed over two years

This project will build on prior efforts and leverage existing activities spanning multiple DOE programs that are developing interconnection and interoperability standards and test procedures to:

• harmonize requirements across jurisdictions
• eliminate conflicting requirements across technology domains
• streamline conformance test procedures to the fullest extent possible

$3.5M

Advanced DC-DC and DC-AC converter-based integrated modules and associated systems architectures and topologies will be developed for 13.8kV, 60Hz direct grid connection using SiC devices. In parallel, advanced magnetic cores and high frequency (HF) transformers built upon them will be developed to enable DC-DC and DC-AC converters with energy storage (ES) that serve as the building blocks for the proposed technologies. System architecture studies informed by market driven technical requirements will also be performed to provide guidance for the on-going R&D activities throughout.

Develop and disseminate accurate solar resource information through improvement in instrumentation, traceable ISO-17025 accredited calibration and characterization, and resource modeling. Develop industry relevant consensus standards and best practices to lower barriers and reduces financing risk and costs.

Strengthen and increase relevance of the System Advisor Model (SAM) as the best-in-class modeling software for techno-economic analysis of solar energy technologies. Research and implement cutting-edge system performance and financial models. Develop open platforms to enable custom, proprietary, and high value-add extension plugins. Technical support, documentation, and training to promote stakeholder engagement. Integrate the latest and most accurate databases for components, solar resource, tariffs, and costs.

Responsive loads that can be controlled temporally and spatially to minimize difference between demand and PV production to minimize voltage variation and reduce two-way power flow. Develop models and perform system-level simulation; Model-based control design to generate control software; Controller and communication network development; Unit-level and system-level testing; Field Testing

Analyze the role of dispatchable concentrating solar power (CSP) in providing multiple grid services to increase the overall penetration of solar energy and mitigate the variability impacts of solar PV. Using industry vetted tools and methods simulate the value of CSP with TES providing multiple grid services over all time scales of interest

The goal of this effort is to develop a distributed control and communications architecture that refines the SunShot Systems Integration communications target metrics by clearly articulating the impact of each metric on the grid. Depending on the application, some metrics may be relaxed significantly, resulting in significant cost savings. For other applications, the metrics may not be sufficient to maintain or improve the stability and security of the power grid with very high penetrations of PV generation (e.g., 2030).

The objective of the proposed research is a full-scale, operational implementation of the opportunistic hybrid communication system. The system is considered hybrid because it utilizes different communications pathways, such as SCADA systems, satellite communications, and powerline communications. It is opportunistic in that it chooses to route messages through each of these systems based on recent data about latency and availability to ensure reliable message passing. From a PV perspective, the research will allow the current gaps in knowledge on grid performance, phrased in terms of reliability, scalability, interoperability, flexibility, and security, to be filled with measured data from PV systems and other monitoring points in the power system and with robust inferences from state estimation algorithms.

This project updates the codes and standards identified under the grid performance and reliability topic area focusing on the distribution grid.  The standards addressed are the IEEE 1547 series, UL 1741 and the NEC.  Establishing accelerated development of new interconnection and interoperability requirements and conformance procedures is the key result for this project.  

Directly addressing the reduced system inertia and frequency response challenge under high (60-90%) solar penetration for all three major grids (WECC, ERCOT, and EI). Technical Approach: 1) Dynamic simulations using power grid models and best-estimated high PV penetration scenarios, 2) Develop grid-support inverter control.

Goal: Development new and innovative methods for rapid QSTS Simulations to assess Distributed PV impacts accurately. Objective 1: Reduce the computational time and complexity of QSTS analysis to achieve year-long time series solutions that can be run in less than 5 minutes at a time step of 1 second. Objective 2: Develop high-resolution proxy data sets that will be statistically representative of existing measured load and PV plant data and will provide an accurate representation of PV impacts. Objective 3: Improve both the time and accuracy of QSTS analysis in order to make it the industry-preferred PV impact assessment method.

Innovations: a) discrete-event co-simulation platform b) QSTS: Quasi-Static Time Series Co-simulation c) Real-time Data Acquisition for Predictive Analytics, d) FMI: Functional Mockup Interface, e) Ptolemey II: Cyberphysical simulation framework

To develop a software tool suite, comprising of three tools, for improving grid reliability and performance of combined transmission-distribution systems under high solar penetration, a) High-fidelity combined transmission-distribution steady-state analysis tool, b) Simultaneous transmission (T) and distribution system (D) dynamic and protection system analysis tool, and c) Distribution system state estimation (DSSE) with AMI, PMU, new sensors, and asynchronous updates.

Voltage regulation challenges at sub-transmission will be a barrier for high penetration of photovoltaics (PVs). We will develop a Coordinated Real-time Sub-Transmission Volt-Var Control Tool (CReST-VCT) to optimize the use of reactive power control devices to stabilize voltage fluctuations caused by intermittent PV. We will couple this tool to an Optimal Future Sub-Transmission Volt-Var Planning Tool (OFuST-VPT) for short- and long-term planning. Together, the real-time control and planning tools will remove a major roadblock to the increased use of distributed PV. CReST-VCT will be demonstrated and validated on North Carolina State University (NCSU) microgrid test systems with hardware-in-the-loop simulations. Field demonstration will be performed on the Duke Energy system feeder test bed and selected sub-transmission buses.

Objective: Understand the impact of technologies on the distribution system and how they can be used for planning and operations to increase PV penetration (reduce interconnection study costs and approval duration). Approach: Build a set of open source tools. Verify tools utilizing data from industry and utility partners. Validate the platform in a pilot testbed with HIL and data from deployed hardware in the field.

The aim of the proposed project is to develop distributed inverter controllers which provide a low-resistance path from the current inertia-dominated grid paradigm to a future grid paradigm dominated by low-inertia power systems with 100's of GWs of PV integration.

The Vehicle to Building Integration Pathway project will develop and demonstrate pre-normative methods needed to develop a standardized and interoperable communication pathway and control system architecture between Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs), Electric Vehicle Support Equipment (EVSE) and Building/Campus Energy Management Systems (BEMSs) to enable the integration of clean variable renewable sources with workplace PEV charging infrastructure to promote greater PEV adoption. This communications and control platform will provide access to real-time system monitoring information, establish an infrastructure to coordinate intelligent assets, manage energy consumption behind the meter, reduce peak demand charges resulting from vehicle charging, and potentially participate in energy and/or ancillary services markets.

The objective of the proposed project is to address the considerable uncertainty regarding the degree to which PEVs can provide grid services and mutually benefit the electric utilities, PEV owners, and auto manufacturers. How can the potential benefits be unlocked without negative unintended consequences? This project will answer this question by leveraging capabilities of multiple national laboratories with vehicle/grid integration (VGI) to perform hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) studies that integrate communication and control system hardware with simulation and analysis activities.

This project aims to create a modeling framework that will model timescales from decades to seconds to help analyze the impact of wind generation on the power system while considering realistic market design and strategies. This framework will provide the ability to model the impacts of wind on the economics and reliability of the grid in a realistic market environment. Most integration studies have focused on modeling the physical characteristics of the grid, but market inefficiencies can hinder access to the physical flexibility that is available, as noted in the Wind Vision Roadmap. The inability of previous studies to consider these market impacts on system operations are a significant shortcoming of previous work in wind integration. In this study, we propose a framework that considers the market impacts on revenue sufficiency and therefore resource adequacy and system reliability. Without the ability to represent realistic markets in future models and studies, system operators and regulators will not be able to integrate wind generation efficiently, creating a more difficult and costly transition to a modern electric power system.

This project aims at providing solutions to maintain situational awareness in the control room as more wind generation is integrated in power systems. The team proposes to develop an open visualization platform “WindView” that can simultaneously display wind forecast information with system power flows for the operators to better understand the operational aspects of the system as more wind energy is integrated. Industry-available and research-grade forecasting tools can be interfaced with WindView to display the wind energy forecasts through cognitive coarsened information representation, such as quantiles, bar graphs, and other representations identified by the industry partners. Through use of publicly-available map-based layout, such as Google Maps, the network information, such as power flows, generation dispatch, etc., will be displayed to avail the wide-area information. The design of WindView will be shaped by the most pressing needs of the industry through feedback and participation with industry partners.

Policymakers and industry stakeholders do not have sufficient access to clear and unbiased information about the characteristics of variable generation. This results in the creation of artificial limits to wind energy deployment that hinder development of bulk power system standards and increase the cost of maintaining reliability. According to the DOE Wind Vision Roadmap, “There is an important role for stake­holders in helping to develop best practices in power system operation and design, as well as in designing both physical and institutional systems to support achieving the Wind Vision.” In this project, we will address key parts of the role identified in the Wind Vision by engaging with policy makers, regulators, international groups and regional planning and reliability organizations (RP&ROs) to deliver timely and objective information about wind energy.

The aim of the proposed wind-friendly flexible ramping product is to transform a negative characteristic of wind power, specifically “ramping”, into an advantageous one. Through efficient management of wind ramps, a significant contribution to the reduction of integration costs of wind power can be obtained while simultaneously allowing the optimization of wind power as a ramping product in the market. Main project initiatives are: (i) Development of a probabilistic wind power ramp forecasting method to characterize and forecast ramps from a utility-scale perspective; (ii) Analysis and synthesis of ramping products specific to the proposed test system(s), allowing guidelines and recommendations to be derived with respect to spatiotemporal impacts and other case-specific considerations; (iii) Design of flexible ramping products which can be implemented in a new market model to co-optimize energy, reserve and ramping.; (iv) Validate the benefits of incorporating wind ramp forecasts and improved management of wind power dispatch, and demonstrate potential economic and reliability benefits; (v)  Continue to develop the “GridLAB-ISO” tool and integrate the proposed ramping product model into it; use “GridLAB-ISO” to simulate an actual ISO system, and (vi) Create awareness of the benefits of flexible ramping products for the enhanced integration of wind energy, sharing methodologies and lessons learned with industry.

The goal of this effort is to develop and test coordinated controls of active power by wind generation, short term energy storage, and large industrial motor drives for providing various types of ancillary services to the grid and minimizing loading impacts and thereby reducing operation and maintenance costs (O&M) and subsequently the cost of energy (COE) generated by wind power. This work will utilize the $30M multi-year DOE investments and unique characteristics of NREL’s existing NWTC test site including a combination of multi-MW utility scale wind turbine generators, variable-frequency motor drives (VFD), new 8 MW energy storage testing facility, 1 MW solar PV array, and 7 MVA Controllable Grid Interface (CGI). This combination of technologies allows for the optimization, testing and demonstration of various types of active power controls (APC) by wind power in coordination with other generation sources (including regenerative loads) and energy storage that allows enhancing or, in some cases, substituting the APC services by wind power and reducing impacts on wind turbine component life and thus increasing the availability and reliability of the power supply from wind.

Idaho National Lab's concurrent cooling–Dynamic Line Rating (DLR) is an example of additional data that needs to be effectively integrated into control rooms. The DLR project supports the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE-EERE) mission to provide high-impact research, development, and demonstration to make clean energy as affordable and convenient as traditional forms of energy by establishing a means to increase the integration of renewable energy generation with the associated increase in transmission line capacity, which are traditionally limited by conductor thermal capacity and can be significantly underutilized. These projects take a science-based approach to advance line rating standards through an innovative methodology. These projects also develop various technology improvements utilizing dynamic, real-time environmental conditions measured and modeled using computational fluid dynamics, leading to average line capacity improvements of 10–40% above static ratings. The weather station data and ampacity calculation comprise an additional layer of data. Utilities would like to utilize this new capacity to enable additional power flow when the need to transmit power coincides with conducive meteorological conditions (concurrent cooling). Conveying the information to allow the operator to make an informed decision based on this additional information is important to more effective utilization of the transmission asset. Even more important is the timely notification when conditions change in a negative direction as the extra capacity is actively being used.

The Pan North American Renewable Integration Study will address a major shortcoming in previous studies that only analyze high penetrations of renewables in one country.  High penetrations of wind, solar, and hydro in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico could have substantial impacts on the design and operation of the power grids of each country, and analysis will be necessary to determine the potential operational impacts and the benefits of coordinated planning and operation between the three countries.  PARIS will be the single largest renewable integration study ever undertaken.  

This work proposes to develop a set of regional–level, scalable open source load models and tools, including large scale aggregate load protection, price responsive demand, advanced load composition data, and next generation load model data tools. The resulting improvements will significantly enhance the regional level power grid’s overall stability and reliability

Leverage practical AMI, SCADA, PMU and laboratory experiment data to develop static, dynamic as well as customer behavior-driven and demand response-enabled load/DG models at component, customer, feeder and substation levels. The developed hierarchical load/DG models will facilitate the development of planning models and integrated transmission and distribution models (Topic 4). Successful completion of this project will deliver a set of load/DG models and commercially-available software tools (PSS/E, CYME, RTDS/OPAL-RT) with the developed models.

Develop and validate a dynamics and protection simulation platform to enable utility planning, operations, and protection engineers to better understand and mitigate cascading blackouts involving protection. To realize this goal, the team will build upon the capabilities of ‘TS3ph’, a dynamics simulator developed through the DOE-OE AGMR funded project “High-fidelity ‘faster than real-time’ simulator for predicting power system dynamic behavior.” The project will focus on advancing the modeling, simulation, analysis, and visualization capabilities of TS3ph-CAPE through the following innovation pathways:  Fill current industry modeling gaps, accelerate dynamics simulation, develop new analysis metrics, create new situational awareness capabilities, and validate and verify the developed dynamics simulator with standard industry tools, and observed data.

An initial version of an open source integrated software platform for varying vendor systems will be developed which supports the full suite of distribution management applications (such as voltage and reactive power optimization; fault location, isolation, and service restoration; economic dispatches; and optimization routines). This integrated platform, based on specifications and requirements to be developed jointly with utilities, will allow information to flow between individual applications across the entire utility enterprise, enabling enhanced visibility and controllability of system assets. Development and evaluation of the ADMS platform will be conducted in a utility-centric environment, involving qualified system operators from distribution utilities of varying sizes, to ensure that the capabilities being developed are applicable to the largest possible cross section of utilities. Investments leveraging the increased types and volume of available system data, due to a recent surge in advanced technology deployments, will also be explored to develop new applications. These new applications will greatly enhance observability and controllability required to integrate large amounts of renewables in a safe and effective manner, utilize assets more efficiently during restorations, enable much wider range of choices for consumers, and maintain affordable electricity rates.

This project will establish a national, vendor-neutral Advanced Distribution Management System testbed to accelerate industry development and adoption of ADMS capabilities for the next decade and beyond.  The testbed will enable utility partners, vendors, and researchers to evaluate existing and future ADMS use cases in a test setting that provides a realistic combination of multiple utility management systems and field equipment.  The testbed will allow utilities and vendors alike to evaluate: (1) the impacts of ADMS functions on system operations; (2) interoperability among ADMS system components; (3) interactions with hardware devices; (4) integration challenges of ADMS with legacy systems; and (5) ADMS vulnerability and resiliency.  The testbed will provide a less expensive and lower risk alternative to a pilot deployment, plus the ability to simulate contingency scenarios that are not practical to test using a real distribution system.  

Improve forecasts of electric outages for tropical cyclone events affecting U.S. territory in the Caribbean, Atlantic seaboard, and Gulf of Mexico regions. The project is intended to design a web-based tool that would forecast potential electric distribution outages from tropical cyclones on a county block level and to identify energy system infrastructure at-risk.

Develop and deploy an online software tool available to the DOE Emergency Operations Center (EOC) analysts that enables them to make repeatable predictions of electrical outages caused by imminent or synthetic tropical cyclones at a spatial resolution of 250m X 250m with quantified uncertainty. The online software tool will also identify critical infrastructure at risk from direct cyclone impacts and secondary impacts from electric power outages.

Collaborate with states, utilities, and storage providers to help elucidate storage benefits and integration challenges. Specifically, work with four demonstration projects that cover a wide range of promising technologies and applications: Green Mountain Power (VT), Salem Smart Grid Center (OR), Electric Power Board (EPB) of Chattanooga (TN), and Los Alamos County (NM).  The outcome will be analysis that identifies the value streams for each potential application, as well as operational modes and control strategic for the optimal utilization of the energy storage system to maximize the value streams.

Research to develop a suite of software applications and libraries of phasor measurement units (PMUs) and synchrophasor data for power system planning, modeling, and analysis. The research and software development activities will be coordinated with industry partners and universities. All applications will be based on the common open platform concept, have a common data format structure, and be released under an open-source license. This work will address oscillation detection, frequency response, model validation and calibration, equipment misoperations, and other important power-grid-related issues.

Investigate ways to use the information available from phasor measurement units (PMU), and the widespread availability of controllable loads, to design a novel control strategy for inter-area damping. The first part of the proposed work will develop a decoupled modulation control approach to design a more effective damping control with less interference among different oscillation modes in the system. The second explores how HVDC networks and a sufficient proportion of the loads could be used to enhance the decoupled modulation control approach developed in the first part. Methods to enhance measurement redundancy and control in case of PMU communication failure will also be developed.

This project will concentrate on exploring scenarios and use cases, including multi-objective DC system modulation/control strategies for providing artificial inertia to the system and simultaneously to provide an optimal redistribution of power flows in the AC system to accommodate additional flows from renewables in a reliable and economical fashion. The key element in the approach is to maximize the value of DC technologies by exploiting their advantages in a coordinated fashion. 

The focus of this proposed effort is to develop a comprehensive set of transient and dynamic models for HVDC/MVDC transmission topologies, and hybrid simulation interfaces that can be used for stability and reliability analysis of DC-transmission dominated power systems with high levels of variable renewable generation. The availability of such models will enable the research community to investigate the impacts of control characteristics of HVDC/MVDC systems and address the challenges listed under several GMLC Foundational Topics.

The objective of this project is to fill a gap and make the grid “smarter” (i.e. more intelligent and resilient) through the creation of an innovative ESB+ (enterprise service bus) for MultiSpeak. The ESB+ will support increased interoperability and security of the MultiSpeak standard and reduce costs in utilities that depend on MultiSpeak. ESB+ will include a number of game changing advances.

ANL