PG&E Achieves 400% Increase in Posted Integration Capacity After Data Refresh with GridUnity Software

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PG&E’s Currents newsletter on May 11 featured the impressive results the California utility recently achieved by refreshing its data portal using GridUnity’s Grid Model Management (GMM) software. According to the article:

“PG&E worked with platform-as-a-service and cloud analytics company GridUnity to conduct a system-wide refresh intended to improve the accuracy of results and better operationalize the ICA data by re-analyzing all valid circuits. The PG&E engineering team utilized GridUnity’s Grid Model Management (GMM) software to drive automated analyses and management-by-exception workflows to ensure completeness of model data and resolve power flow issues in a methodical, collaborative, and consistently repeatable process. As a part of this effort, GridUnity’s GMM software capabilities were expanded and improvements were made to 1) PG&E’s forecasting software, 2) PG&E’s distribution power flow software and ICA algorithm, and 3) PG&E’s Electric Distribution GIS.

As of April 2020, PG&E has completed the refresh, with the result being a nearly 400 percent increase in posted integration capacity.

Before the refresh, the system average of distribution line section integration capacity was 126 kilowatts (kW). After the refresh, the system average of line section capacity increased to 500 kW.”

Read the article here.

Electric Utilities Boost Grid Connection Investments to Handle Surge in Distributed Energy Resources

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Electric Utilities Boost Grid Connection Investments to Handle Surge in Distributed Energy Resources

GridUnity says demand for its software to automate interconnection applications to hit record level in 2017

 

NEW YORK, May 04, 2017 – GridUnity, a distributed energy platform-as-a-service company, today announced it is seeing fast-growing demand for its software which helps utilities efficiently connect and optimize distributed energy resources (DER). GridUnity can accelerate the utility review and interconnection process by as much as 98%.

“The nation’s power industry is at an inflection point, with utilities and regulators needing to quickly transform how distributed energy sources are brought onto the grid, and how they will be managed,” said GridUnity CEO Brian Fitzsimons.  “Many utilities are turning to automation and analytics software to help meet critical challenges. GridUnity delivers unprecedented benefits to utilities, regulators, customers and communities. Access to these benefits has been accelerated by recent changes enabling utilities to capitalize cloud-based software in a number of states.”

Just one of these benefits is cutting the time it takes utilities to approve applications to connect new energy sources into the grid. GridUnity reduces interconnection time by up to 98% so that valuable engineering expertise can be focused on more complex project analysis. The chart shows improvements possible using GridUnity and is based on data analysis of a representative sample of utilities in California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.

According to GTM Research and SEIA, nearly two thirds of newly installed electric capacity in 2016 was from solar and wind. For utilities, this is translating into new milestones in distributed energy – such as Pacific Gas and Electric’s reaching 2,409 megawatts of private rooftop solar capacity and a surge in interest for new solar energy programs at Hawaiian Electric. GridUnity is working with utilities, regulators and developers to identify and adopt innovative ways to address the record-setting influx of distributed energy resources.

The company has tripled its R&D team, while boosting overall investment in the development of new cloud-based solutions. These areas include:

  • Engaging customers, partners and regulators in an online process for interconnection application, review and approval of all energy resources – rather than relying on slow and expensive manual processes;
  • A proactive approach to analyzing, mapping and publishing the grid’s hosting capacity – helping developers identify locations that could benefit from distributed generation, accelerating approval times and helping utilities maintain accurate network models; and
  • Safeguarding grid reliability with holistic grid planning and optimization that leverages data across a utility’s core business processes, systems and departments to undertake predictive simulations on DER impacts, optimize Demand Side Management programs, identify optimal mitigation strategies, and compare high value capital investments with non-wire alternatives.

Founded in 2010, GridUnity’s customers include Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, and the three Hawaiian Electric utilities.  Formerly known as Qado Energy, the company worked with the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative to develop its platform (Read EERE Success Story published today) and is now rapidly expanding its software user base to help speed industry-wide transformation of DER interconnection and optimization processes.

PG&E claims 25% of US Residential Rooftop Solar Connections

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San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) claims it has connected one in every four rooftop solar households in the US, or 200,000 customers through the end of last week.

by Richard A. Kessler

California’s second largest utility also asserts that it connects solar customers to the grid with an average five-day turnaround, among the fastest in the nation and a fraction of the industry average of four weeks.

Year to date, PG&E has connected more than 70,000 solar customers to the grid versus 45,000 for all 2014. Faster interconnections due to technical and process improvements helped the utility get more customers online with solar than ever before.

“We connected our first solar customer to the grid in 1993, and since then we’ve been the nation’s leader in bringing solar to our customers’ homes. We hear from customers that they want choice and control when it comes to energy management,” says Laurie Giammona, PG&E senior vice president and chief customer officer.

PG&E says it continues to work with industry partners to further shorten and improve the time it takes to connect new solar customers to the grid.

In September, PG&E announced its participation in the Northern and Central California SunShot Alliance, sponsored by the US Department of Energy. With its alliance partners SolarCity, Qado Energy, Accela and the City of Livermore, PG&E plans to construct and interconnect rooftop solar systems in one day or less.

Analysts forecast continued strong demand for solar energy in California this decade and beyond. Last week, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill into law that increases the state’s renewables mandate to 50% by the end of 2030 from the present 33% by 31 December 2020.

In January, Brown also issued an executive order that aims to cut California’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.

Declining cost of solar has made it more competitive for residential customers, and electric utilities and the state have a number of incentive programs to encourage its use.

California leads all states with more than 10GW of installed solar capacity.

Pursuing Grid Flexibility, Avoiding Grid Lock

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New Software Busts Through Time Barriers that Prevent New Energy Resources from Getting onto the Grid

Author: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Distributed energy resources (DERs), like renewable solar photovoltaic and energy storage systems, are part of the answer to a more diversified power supply. When brought together, these resources can provide the necessary supply flexibility to help meet demands. There is a complicated gap, though, between renewable generation sources and the electric grid: the “interconnection” application process. This important, but time-consuming, review function has become a roadblock—instead of a pathway—to diversifying our energy resources.

A new software tool, called GridUnity™, offers cloud-based analysis services that allow utilities to upload their distribution system planning models and translate them into a format used by GridLAB-D™. Developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity, GridLAB-D™ is an open-source tool for studying advanced “smart” distribution grids. When paired with Qado Energy’s user-oriented tools and interfaces, the resulting new scalable interface for simulating smart grid resources automates the interconnection analysis steps and cuts the processing time for each application from roughly 80 days to only one and a half hours. This not only reduces administrative costs, but more importantly, also increases grid reliability through the integration of DERs and accelerates the adoption of clean energy, such as solar, to meet the President’s goal of 20 percent renewables by 2030.

United for a Better Grid

GridUnity™ started as two solo technologies—Qado Energy with a cloud-based software application, and PNNL with GridLAB-D™. GridLAB-D™ simulates a smart grid with the addition of loads, batteries, and solar systems, but it was still research grade—suitable for lab simulations and studies, but not particularly user-friendly for industry.

 

GridLab-D has several applications that demonstrate some of its capabilities. This Solar Demonstration Simulation shows the effects of clouds on photovoltaic penetration. (Image courtesy of the PNNL)

“It would have cost three to four times as much to build GridLAB-D™ if we had made it more ‘approachable’ at the outset. Our hope was that companies like Qado would come along and build those interfaces,” said PNNL engineer Rob Pratt, manager of the Lab’s GridWise™ program.

And they did.

“When we looked at PNNL’s technology, we realized we could put together the pieces and re-architect them into a highly scalable cloud solution. By balancing complexity and ease of use, we’ve taken a highly specialized tool and made it more flexible in the hands of an engineer,” said Brian Fitzsimmons, serial entrepreneur and founder of Qado Energy.

Today, both organizations are collaborating on a California Solar Initiative research project with California Edison to help the utility understand how much photovoltaic energy it can host before the distribution system requires more investment, and compare the costs of various technologies to mitigate the impacts. GridUnity™ is at the heart of the research.

Interconnection Application Process

Each new distributed generator or storage system must go through a process in which utilities conduct an engineering review of the new proposed energy source. For example, a home with solar—or photovoltaic—power could be a good resource for the grid, but conducting the study that determines that it is safe for the distribution system is costly and time consuming for the utility. As the pace of adding these resources continues to accelerate, conducting these engineering studies is becoming quite burdensome. Depending which state you live in, it could be months, even years, before you are approved.

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Source: https://hdiac.org/highlight/3618