Distributed Generation & Microgrids

“While VPPs, utility DERMS, and grid-edge DER orchestration platforms arose as related but distinct, they are converging. This article explores how and why the lines separating these solutions are disappearing, what a future steady state might look like, and what this means for utility investments in load flexibility.”

Conversations with ComEd’s Mark Baranek and Scott Vogt and Prologis’ Nastasha Keefer on their many community solar installations around Chicagoland.

“In the past ten years, we’ve deployed over 200 MW at more than 150 microgrid sites across the greater Houston community and even before Beryl hit, the Network Operations Center was ready to support local utilities in keeping the lights on as they worked to restore power.”

“Solutions leveraging gas capacity, battery storage, geothermal generation, and fuel cells are creating a bridge to long-term electricity grid solutions. This may be the start of a trend where modular demand needs are matched to distributed generation.”

Exelon subsidiary ComEd began its Community of the Future program in 2016 with the Bronzeville Community Microgrid in Chicago. PUF journeyed there to see firsthand how ComEd is taking Chicago into the future with the first utility operated microgrid cluster.

“The Microgrid in a Box can be plugged in just about anywhere. You would need a step-up transformer for the utility connection. Normally, to try to serve a building with it, but also have it tied to distribution, you’d be between the utility distribution transformer and the building.”

“With the energy transition and accompanying rise of distributed energy resources like solar, wind, and renewables, the grid and the data architecture behind it is becoming more and more distributed. But distributed data is a difficult problem to solve.”

“We push technology hard at PPL mainly because we want to be the best utility in the country, in the world. That’s our goal, and you can’t be that unless you go out and learn from others.”

“Each case study was informed by real world benefit cost analyses and data for similar use cases, but they have been generalized into illustrative and hypothetical examples for broader applicability.”

“To better manage the rise in connections to the grid, utilities should consider implementing a Distributed Energy Management System, or DERMS, that can aggregate, and in some cases, control customer-owned assets.”