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Maria Telkes Top Innovator Award for Distributed Energy: Puget Sound Energy

Deck: 

Top Innovators

Byline: 

Ryan Murphy, Laurent Sayer

Author Bio: 

Ryan Murphy and Laurent Sayer represent the Virtual Power Plant Software Platform at Puget Sound Energy.

Fortnightly Magazine - October 2023

PUF's Lori Burkhart: Describe the innovation that led to your team winning the Maria Telkes Top Innovator Award for Distributed Energy, how it works, and its benefits to Puget Sound Energy.

Ryan Murphy: A Virtual Power Plant is a software platform that acts like an aggregator of distributed energy resources, making it possible for utilities like PSE to forecast, control, and readily dispatch consumer-owned resources like battery storage systems and demand response programs within our service area. Through the implementation and usage of the VPP, PSE will gain a better understanding of which DERs are the most reliable and effective at delivering results to support our clean energy goals.

Laurent Sayer: Over the last couple of years PSE implemented a Virtual Power Plant. The VPP helps coordinate the use of distributed energy resources during peak load hours.

DERs can be thermostats, battery systems, building energy management systems, electric vehicle chargers, all types of appliances, which when pooled together can be called upon to help reduce load by hundreds of megawatts. It is similar to starting a traditional generation power plant when you need more power.

PUF: What was your role in the innovation's development?  

Ryan Murphy: The System Operations team supported the development of the measurement and validation data from the system peak load offset contributions. As we move from development into implementation, our team will establish the DER forecast and schedule events.

Ryan Murphy: The System Operations team supported the development of the measurement and validation data from the system peak load offset contributions. As we move from development into implementation, our team will establish the DER forecast and schedule events.

Laurent Sayer: I am the IT implementation manager for this project. My role is to ensure IT resources are identified and available to support the goals and timelines of the project. The IT team worked closely with our multiple business partners — load office, system operations, trade floor, energy efficiency programs, new product development — and vendors to define the objectives and implement the technical solutions for the project.

PUF: What was most rewarding for you during this project?

Ryan Murphy: As Director of Electric Operations, moving from concept to a functional tool which initiated a load offset on our system.

Laurent Sayer: This is where IT meets clean energy. We can use a VPP just like a power plant. It helps PSE meet its renewable energy goals and engages our customers like never before as they can participate directly in helping reduce load.

Laurent Sayer: There are so many exciting aspects to this project. First, this is where IT meets clean energy. The fact we can use a VPP just like a power plant is fascinating.

It helps PSE meet its renewable energy goals and engages our customers like never before as they can participate directly in helping reduce load. Also, from a technical standpoint, the VPP is a new concept and we had to build this system from the ground up and involve so many business teams.

It pushed all our teams to think with innovation in mind and it took a village, a lot of discovery and creative thinking to make it happen. The collaboration and engagement from all teams was amazing. This is just the beginning of the story for this technology.

 

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