THE ENERGY INDUSTRY TIMES - DECEMBER 2020 Executive Interview 13

Conducting an of DERs

Variable renewable energy sources such as solar are posing challenges for grid operators

anaging a constantly chang- The growing amount ing electricity network is no of renewables and Measy task. And the job is not getting any easier. With the prolifer- distributed energy ation of variable renewables at the transmission level and distributed resources (DERs) on energy resources (DERs) at the dis- tribution level, such as electric vehi- the grid is presenting cles, heat pumps, batteries, and ener- gy from prosumers, utilities more unprecedented than have their hands full. created, only 50 are consumed. So and operations management needs According to Walsh, much of the It is a new world that Jim Walsh, we are trying to help them bring to be involved in the management of ongoing innovation is taking place challenges for today’s General Manager, Grid Software So- these disparate energy sources to- renewables and DERs. Certainly on the distribution grid – where mi- lutions, GE Digital, says is becom- gether. And that’s where you hear us Geospatial Information Systems crogrids, rooftop solar panels, etc., grid operators. GE ing increasingly complex and calls starting to talk about this notion of (GIS), Advanced Distribution Man- are becoming more commonplace. for greater renewable and DER orchestration, which is having the agement Systems (ADMS), Ad- He stresses, however, that the DSOs Digital’s Jim Walsh awareness for utilities and a much ability to model, monitor forecast vanced Energy Management Sys- “need to do a better job” of provid- more “orchestrated” approach across and ultimately control the dispatch tems (AEMS) and Advanced Market ing visibility and communicating to explains why a single, their full information technology of these new renewables and DERs. Management Systems (AMMS) all the TSOs upstream. (IT)/operational technology (OT) That’s where we believe you will have a role to play. But Walsh ex- Walsh said: “As things change on coordinated, view of network. achieve this balance between reli- plains that the grid cannot be oper- the distribution grid, with more elec- the distribution and “The world of the grid operator is ability and efficiency.” ated through a number of different trons being generated on the distri- becoming more challenging by the These resources are disrupting util- silo-type bespoke solutions. bution side than there was before, it transmission grids is day. They are seeing more change in ity business models and operations “There has to be one integrated all needs to be communicated to the the last five years than they have in at the most fundamental level. At the platform, so there is one view of the TSO in close to real-time.” needed if utilities are the previous 125. Renewables pene- transmission level, the challenges are network; one version of the truth,” He says that bringing this data to- tration is fundamentally changing linked to installed capacity, balanc- said Walsh. gether offers utilities the opportunity to maintain reliability everything that they thought they ing, reserves, stability, lack of iner- While there has been innovation going forward to potentially build knew about how to seamlessly oper- tia, and lack of visibility to what is around renewables and DER man- new business models by becoming efficiently. ate an electric grid,” he said. “When happening at the distribution level. agement, including solutions that, aggregators of all the electrons from we talk about orchestration, we are Here, the challenges include hid- for example, take weather into ac- the various sources, and thus create Junior Isles describing the integration of all the den loads, backfeeds, and voltage is- count, Walsh says today’s siloed so- new markets. different electron sources, and man- sues. Hidden load refers to the share lutions “come short”. GE Digital “Having visibility of all the assets agement of supply and demand in a of consumption covered by embed- has therefore been looking to bring and getting all of this data under much more seamless way.” ded generation, which is therefore the capabilities of these systems to- control would give utilities whole Existing grids have been built to not directly visible to the grid - gether in an integrated way on a new degrees of freedom so they can handle consistent power flows in one tor whose traditional operation sys- common platform that leverages a innovate on their business models in direction. Today, there are many in- tems only manage “net load”, i.e. the common data model. “This is the the future,” noted Walsh. “But in the termittent generating sources – many net flow on the power lines. next level of efficiency and capabili- short-term, it’s about how to keep of which are embedded in the distri- However, accurate visibility of the ty that utilities are looking for,” said the grid reliable without significant bution grid – and consumers can also two components of the net load (na- Walsh. levels of redundancy that are ineffi- produce and feed power back into tive consumption and embedded The other thing he says is missing, cient. Storage technologies will be the grid. generation) is essential to many core is the ability to recognise when new part of that equation.” Transmission system operators distribution grid management pro- DERs are added to the grid. With no As a player in both the transmis- Walsh: Variable renewable (TSOs) perform a balancing act be- cesses. When a fault occurs, for ex- formal registration process for add- sion and distribution parts of the energy sources such as solar tween grid supply and demand every ample, ensuring that a faulty feeder ing DERs to the grid in many juris- electricity chain, GE Digital says it are posing challenges for grid day. Meanwhile, distribution system is de-energised is paramount for the dictions, he says self-recognition is well placed to help utilities meet operators operators (DSOs) work to ensure safety of workers in charge of the re- an advance that will be “really im- their immediate needs as well as re- quality and continuity of service pair. As such, operators must be portant” in the next couple of years. alise the future possibilities. to end-users. Utilities and regula- aware of every single PV rooftop Walsh noted: “We are looking at According to Walsh, the company tors expect this to be done flaw- and fully comprehend its connection/ ways to provide more automated ca- operates in every level of the value lessly. But renewables and DERs disconnection status. pabilities to our utility customers, so stream. “From the time an electron are creating unprecedented chal- GE Digital makes the point that they don’t have to be as dependent is created to when it hits the con- lenges for the electric grid. In DERs cannot be marginalised. As on the registration process.” sumer, we have software capabili- some geographies, there is now distribution level challenges aggre- In an effort to help DSOs and ties that can help orchestrate that,” more energy being fed directly at gate up to the interface with the TSOs “connect some of the dots”, he said. the distribution level than there is transmission level, DERs are push- GE Digital has been building It also has geospatial capabilities at the transmission level. ing TSOs and DSOs to coordinate. “DER-enabled” capability into its that enable the physical world to be But while utilities are coping Clearly it is more of an issue in re- products and started working with represented digitally, and the bring- with this high degree of complexi- gions where there is higher renew- network operators on specific proj- ing together of all the changing as- ty, all while maintaining reliabili- able penetration. Utilities in states ects. For example, in December sets in order to create the underly- ty, Walsh says it is causing a fair like California and countries like 2018 it worked with Dutch DSO ing data model that represents the degree of inefficiency. What utility Germany and the UK have therefore Stedin in creating a network capa- complete grid. leaders need, he says, is an end-to- been forced to adapt faster. These bility called T-Forecast. This con- Walsh summed up: “Our vision is end solution to coordinate how have subsequently been the places nected the DSO with the TSO so to build a platform for the network they model, monitor, forecast, and where GE Digital says it has been they had consistent updates in terms operators that the rest of the partici- ultimately control and dispatch doing most of its work. of demand coming from the DSO. pants on the network can consume. these new renewables and DERs Walsh argues that some utilities “This is just one example of where This enables the orchestration that across all internal and external and TSOs may not yet be experienc- those silos can be connected with a we talk about. As a provider of the systems and stakeholders. ing significant impacts on energy common view that gets updated in control platforms and operational “When reliability is a constant flows and voltages profiles but can- more real-time so that the TSOs are systems for network operators, we and the grid itself is becoming not wait for the day they start to ex- better positioned to plan and the are in a great position to provide nat- more dynamic, what you will see perience those impacts. And there is DSO or DNO is in a much better po- ural extensions to the rest of the mar- suffer in the short term is efficien- a growing backlog of devices on the sition to receive. We are seeing that ket participants, which then leads to cy,” said Walsh. “Operators tell us grid that utilities are unaware of. [kind of] digital linkage across all better choreographing than we’ve that out of 100 electrons that get Every single system in grid asset the different silos,” said Walsh. ever seen before.”