GMLC 1.2.5 – Sensing and Measurement Strategy

Lead Performer: Oak Ridge National Laboratory – Oak Ridge, TN
Partners:
-- National Energy Technology Laboratory – Pittsburgh, PA
-- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory – Richland, WA
-- National Renewable Energy Laboratory – Golden, CO
-- Sandia National Laboratory –Albuquerque, NM
-- Argonne National Laboratory – Argonne, IL
-- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – Berkeley, CA
-- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – Livermore, CA
-- Los Alamos National Laboratory – Los Alamos, NM
-- Electric Power Research Institute– Palo Alto, CA
-- Southern Company – Atlanta, GA
-- Electric Power Board of Chattanooga (EPB) – Chattanooga, TN
-- Entergy – New Orleans, LA
-- OSIsoft – San Leandro, CA
-- Dominion – Alexandria, VA
-- Tennessee Valley Authority – Knoxville, TN
-- ComEd – Chicago, IL
-- North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI) – Washington, DC
DOE Total Funding: $3,000,000 (funding is a joint EERE/OE initiative; BTO funds contribute to total)
Project Term: January 2016 – April 2019
Funding Type: DOE Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium (GMLC) Lab Call

Project Objective

As a part of the Department of Energy’s Grid Modernization Initiative, the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium projects represents a comprehensive portfolio of critical research and development in advanced storage systems, clean energy integration, standards and test procedures, and a number of other key grid modernization areas.

The nation's electric system is going through a major transformation with the integration of a large number of devices at the edge (DER, electric vehicles, storage, etc.), a major shift in fuel and generation mix, an aging infrastructure, and added risk of extreme events on the system. The power system that once provided electric power from central power plants to distributed loads using high voltage transmission and lower voltage distribution networks now consists of distributed generation and energy storage as well as conventional and renewable generation sources throughout the system.

These issues require an ability to measure and characterize the state of the system at much higher fidelity and resolution than ever before, from generation through end-use. A cohesive strategy to develop and deploy low-cost, multi-modal sensing and monitoring devices with improved accuracy will be a foundation to achieve this goal. Equally important is minimizing measurement uncertainty and ensuring adequate deployment coverage for complete observability of the power system with the final piece of getting the measurements to the control systems via a robust, secure and resilient communications system.

Therefore, the focus of this work is on an approach to define the requisite parameters to measure, devices needed to measure these parameters, communication requirements to transfer data, and the ability to manage the data and turn data into actionable information. Public-private partnerships will be leveraged to identify measurement requirements along with associated data management and communication systems.

Project Impact

With the grid undergoing a major transformation due to the integration of new devices, major shifts in generation mix, aging infrastructure, and added risk of extreme system events, there is a need to characterize the state of the grid at a much higher fidelity and/or resolution to maintain system reliability and security. By creating an extended grid state reference model, this project will identify the information needed to understand how to instrument the extended electric grid. Similarly, the technology roadmap developed by this project will demonstrate a technology pathway for technologies needed to measure electric grid parameters.

Contacts

DOE Technology Manager: Marina Sofos
Lead Performer: Tom Rizy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory