MICROGRIDS: LOCAL CONTROL OF A NEW ENERGY SYSTEM Gary Radloff, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

MICROGRIDS: LOCAL CONTROL OF A NEW ENERGY SYSTEM

Gary Radloff, Principal The Radloff Group November 29, 2018 Madison, WI – Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts & Letters (Environmental Breakfast series)

Microgrids & Advanced Distribution Networks

• Enables greater

efficiency and resiliency.

• Helps address $100B

in business losses due to power disruptions.

• Deployed at hospitals,

military bases, factories, more

• Offers new products

and supply chains for Wisconsin’s electrical equipment manufacturers.

Energy System Change

• The electric grid of tomorrow will

experience more change in the next 20 years than in the past 100 years combined.

• Who will lead and who follow?
• How much will change be market and

consumer driven? How much by policy change?

De-carbonization/Digitalization/De-centralization

• The 3D’s of change: The century-plus old electric system is

undergoing three tectonic shifts:

• Analog to Digital: The electric energy system, especially the

grid, has gone from analog to digital, with millions of new devices attached to the grid from solar panels to refrigerators;

• Centralized to decentralized: The electric energy system has

gone from centralized power production to more decentralized, like the shift from mainframe computers to smartphones;

• Multiple directional data and energy flows: The electric

energy system has gone from one-way flow of electricity (and data) to having it flow in multiple directions.

• Remember, this is an energy system that changed relatively little

for over 100 years until the last decade. Customers today are choosing clean energy or what I like to call “Advanced Energy Systems.”

What is a microgrid?

What is a microgrid?

Powering connections with microgrids

Multiple value propositions

Growing Electricity Customer Options (DERs =

New supply & demand paradigm)

• Buy it: the legacy grid & utility are no longer the only option
• Make it: first challenge to status quo with solar PV, wind and biogas

distributed generation options

• Eliminate it: energy efficiency or negawatts are raising the bar with

innovative solutions and goals to reduce or eliminate waste.

• Store it: (energy storage) emerging disruptive to change to address multiple

grid services, intermittent renewables,& potentially dispatch it yourself

• Shift it: demand response or demand flexibility is evolving from a traditional

solution to a flexibility tool complemented by other DERs

• Manage it: Microgrids, virtual power plants, smart grid, home & business

management software, algorithms to help prosumer buy and sell energy when the market is favorable. New business model (aggregate it)

• Sell it or share it: the advent of transactive energy and blockchain

technology advances the concept of a new energy value proposition

• Reduce it: No investments in overbuilt generation and fewer system losses.

DERs allow for a paradigm shift

88 GW of Demand Flexibility in 2023

Solar plus battery cost decline in 10 years

Battery Services Three Stakeholders

Network Platform = Value Proposition

How VPP works

Virtual Power Plant (VPP) & Distributed Energy Resource Management Systems (DERMs)

Transactive Energy & blockchain

Some key takeaways about microgrids

• Microgrids can island – meaning operate independently

when the grid goes down (to maintain critical infrastructure).

• Microgrids enable greater system-wide efficiencies

because they are located closer to aggregate loads and

• DERs. (Including opportunities for CHP i.e. heating).
• Microgrids utilization of smart controlers, smart inverters,

sophisticated algorithms, sensors and controls, will balance intermittent generation & link with the cloud (IoT).

• Microgrids catalyze the pathway to local energy markets

with connections to grid services, new value propositions and transactive energy markets. (DSO & aggregators).

CONTACT INFORMATION

Gary Radloff, Principal The Radloff Group glradoff@gmail.com 608-347-9681 http://energy.wisc.edu/about/people/radloff

Wisconsin is one of only ten states out of 50 without energy planning

State Distribution Planning

(Source: DOE)

Discussion: What kind of energy system do you want to see in the future?

• Integrated Distribution Planning (IDP)
• Grid Modernization (two-way energy flows and

communications flows). Energy democratization.

• Connected devices, sensors and controls, and robust

public accessible data (will improve efficiency, create new value propositions and allow transparent policy goals.

• Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) and Non-Wire

Alternatives (NWAs) including energy storage, demand response, next generation efficiency, net-zero buildings create a new supply and demand paradigm and manage system over builds.

• Local energy markets, peer-to-peer trading and sales.

Distribution System Platform (Avista)

Systems Thinking: Future of clean, efficient, resilient energy systems

Is their an aggregator in your future?

Less is more equals flexibility?

• Residential per capita energy load has fallen 7

percent since 2010 partially due to gains in efficiency, building and appliance codes, and increased behind-the- meter generation have been implemented.

• How can alternative revenues replace traditional cost-of-

service billing and related infrastructure investments?

• How much impact will increasing use of electric vehicles

and battery charging impact the grid?

• Is this an opportunity for grid service flexibility?
• This will likely only occur if dumb distribution planning and

investments are replaced by smart clean energy and distributed energy resource (DER) deployment.

What is flexibility?

• Ramp – the ability to respond rapidly and over sustained

periods to changes in load or generation.

• Over-generation – the grid needs to be able to absorb or

shift excess generation.

• Frequency – the grid needs to be keep generation and

load in balance at all times.

• Voltage – maintain voltage within acceptable limits. While

the other flexibility needs are required at a larger system level, voltage is a local requirement and must be managed at a circuit level.

• Flexible resources can be used to reduce system peaks

and flatten net load

States considering performance-based rates (Source: Forbes & Sonia Aggrewal)

Today we are in a market transition

Solar Technology Innovation (NREL)

U.S. Energy Consumption 2017

PV System Cost Declines