Title: Voltage Regulation and Protection Assurance Using Distributed Energy Resource Advanced Grid Functions
Funding Opportunity: ENERGISE
SunShot Subprogram: Systems Integration
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Amount Awarded: $2,500,000
Awardee Cost Share: $500,667

This project creates an open-source advanced distribution management system (ADMS) that encompasses distribution circuits and distributed energy resource (DER) management, including state estimation, voltage regulation, protection coordination, economic optimization, interoperability, and cybersecurity. The ADMS will provide real-time visibility into distribution circuits and optimize the active and reactive settings to meet voltage regulation, protection, and economic objectives in the presence of forecast uncertainty. The open-source software will be incorporated into a commercial vendor’s platform to demonstrate the technology with extensive testing and field demonstrations at 20 feeders located within two utilities.

The research team will design the advanced distribution management system with solar forecasting capability, state estimator, and DER optimization for voltage regulation and estimation-based protection. Once the software is completed, it will be tested using multiple scenarios to demonstrate its ability to meet 50% solar penetration on distribution circuits.

This project will improve visibility into the feeder and incorporate solar forecasts, which will optimize active and reactive DER settings through a community of inverters. The increased knowledge of distributed energy resource power generation will allow utilities to optimally balance supply and demand. Additionally, the open-source distribution grid management framework will enable real-time visibility into distribution circuits to the grid edge, optimizing the active and reactive DER settings to meet voltage regulation, protection, and economic objectives in the presence of forecast uncertainty.