IST Lunch Bunch

An electrical grid leveraging Distributed Energy Resources such as rooftop solar, smart inverters, energy storage, energy efficiency, and controllable loads offers an economically better alternative to the centralized grid design of today.  DERs bring greater total economic benefits at lower cost, enable more affordability and consumer choice, and improve flexibility in grid planning and operations, all while facilitating the de-carbonization of our electricity supply.

DERs deliver the most value to customers and the grid when sited and used in a way that enable multiple use cases and value streams.  A recent report by Rocky Mountain Institute found that customer sided energy storage systems can provide thirteen fundamental electricity services that benefit customers and the grid.  Multi-use applications are economically valuable, but can be operationally complex and require state of the art communication, control, and optimization approaches.

This lecture provides an overview of two practical applications for optimizing DERs across the multiple use cases, including customer-level energy management, retail demand charge management, and wholesale market grid services.  An accompanying optimization framework that maximizes value for customers and the grid will also be explored.