The Future of Energy Management and Grid Resilience with DERMS

24 Feb: The Future of Energy and Grid Resiliency is Distributed

The Future of Energy and Grid Resiliency is Distributed By Giovanni Herazo, Vice President, Smart Grid Solutions As one of FPL’s smart grid & innovation leaders, I saw firsthand how our grid was consistently put to the test by unexpected outages, power quality issues, adverse weather conditions, and rising load demand. Extreme weather in Florida is the norm, not the exception, and maintaining service availability and reliability, while keeping costs low for FPL customers, is a constant challenge. With extreme weather and the rapidly increasing complexity of the grid due to distributed energy resources (DERs), utilities urgently need to reconsider…

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31 Oct: A Texas-sized Milestone for VPPs

A Texas-sized Milestone for VPPs By John Bonnin Spiking energy prices, power plant failures, and the threat of rolling blackouts plagued much of the U.S. this past summer. But as Texans know all too well, winter can also bring outages. Extreme heat and cold require bold new solutions to maintain grid reliability. Particularly as Texans embrace electric heating, cooling, and even vehicles, putting more demand on the grid. These trends led the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), working with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), to announce a new pilot program testing how distributed energy resource (DER) solutions…

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27 Oct: Hey, Europe: You Can’t Get to 100% Renewables Without Demand Side Flexibility

Hey, Europe: You Can’t Get to 100% Renewables Without Demand Side Flexibility By Amit Narayan, CEO AutoGrid Europe has inspired the world with its ambitious renewables integration, smart energy trading, and grid balancing. But the next lap in this race requires a different muscle: Demand Side Flexibility (DSF) or the capacity to throttle electricity consumption by end customers as needed. An important new study from Smart Energy Europe (SmartEn) makes the case for increased DSF in Europe to meet aggressive climate action targets. Gone is the old assumption that because European businesses and homes are more efficient than their US…

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18 Oct: Australia Leads Again with New Mixed-Asset, Multi-Market VPPs

Australia Leads Again with New Mixed-Asset, Multi-Market VPPs By Pamoda Wijetunge, Regional Head ANZ Australia is one of the world’s hot spots for energy innovation. Once a pioneer in deploying renewable energy in remote and isolated power systems on the western side of the country, the focus here has recently shifted to the east coast, where the nation’s largest cities are interconnected with a robust grid facing its own unique set of challenges. As my colleague Peter Asmus noted in a blog published this past May, Australia is leading the way with market conditions ripe for the creation of virtual…

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06 Oct: From Dark to DER: Reinventing Puerto Rico’s Power Grid

From Dark to DER: Reinventing Puerto Rico’s Power Grid By Peter Asmus, Director – Strategic Marketing Tough but not surprising to learn that Puerto Rico’s power grid went dark as Hurricane Fiona pounded the island and the Dominican Republic last month. Just five years ago, Hurricane Maria brought Puerto Rico the worst blackouts in U.S. history. And around the world, the climate crisis continues to unleash extreme weather events, leaving legacy power grids increasingly at risk. Puerto Rico’s greatest challenge is remote centralized power generation relying on vulnerable cross-island transmission lines. When the lines go down in rugged mountainous terrain,…

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26 Sep: California’s Communities Are Key to Tackling the Climate Crisis

California’s Communities Are Key to Tackling the Climate Crisis By Amit Narayan Our electricity system has been described as the world’s largest continuously operating machine. Yet without innovation now required by the climate crisis, our traditional power grids will fail us. This came close to happening during California’s record-setting heat wave in early September. Yet the extreme temperatures also gave us a glimpse into future solutions now being embraced by communities throughout the state. Both recent challenges and promising pathways forward dominated conversation at the California Community Choice Association (CalCCA) gala last Saturday in San Francisco. It was inspiring to…

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10 Sep: Oh California! California’s Grid Flexes But Doesn’t Break.

Oh California! California’s Grid Flexes But Doesn’t Break. AutoGrid Flex Dispatches over 100 events By Rahul Kar – Senior VP If you have been crumbling under the heat dome in California, you are not alone. The electric grid is too. The past few days have been a crescendo of Flex Alerts, Emergency Notifications, threats of rolling blackouts, actual unintended blackouts; it all points to enormous systemic stress on how we supply, balance and consume power. While this is becoming the new norm with climate change and extreme weather events across the globe, let it not be lost that the 5th…

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25 Aug: Inflation Reduction Act: A Boon for VPP Industry

Inflation Reduction Act: A Boon for VPP Industry By Peter Asmus The Inflation Reduction Act  (IRA), signed into law last week, is a boon for virtual power plants (VPPs)–a term commonly used to refer to the ability of digital software platforms to aggregate and optimize distributed energy resources (DER) through the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Though the bill is wide-ranging and addresses health care and federal deficit reduction, the most transformative impact this legislation will have is clearly on reducing the threat of global climate change. Why is the IRA the most significant piece of environmental legislation in decades?…

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12 Aug: AutoGrid’s Customers Flex Grid Muscles During Peak Summer

AutoGrid’s Customers Flex Grid Muscles During Peak Summer By Rahul Kar – Senior VP We are in the middle of peak summer season across the northern hemisphere and the electric grid is already groaning and straining under increased demand. Rolling power outages, alarming spot market energy prices, failing power plants and last minute cries for help from the grid operators, have become the norm. Not so for utilities that have planned ahead and use demand flexibility surgically. For them, a peaking summer day is business as usual. They have flourished managing peak load (and reliability) by forecasting and controlling demand…

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07 Jul: How DER Growth Feeds Growing Synergy Between VPPs, DERMS and Microgrids

How DER Growth Feeds Growing Synergy Between VPPs, DERMS and Microgrids By Peter Asmus According to Guidehouse Insights, the amount of capacity being added to power grids globally from 14 different distributed energy resources (DER) — everything from rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, electric vehicle (EV) charging, and a variety of other loads being converted into demand response (DR) assets – surpassed the new capacity coming on-line from centralized power sources (such as coal or nuclear plants) last year. The gap between distributed and centralized energy capacity additions grows over time in clear favor of DER (see below), highlighting the…

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24 May: Why Australia is Truly the Virtual Power Plants Market Frontier

Why Australia is Truly the Virtual Power Plants Market Frontier By Peter Asmus As one scans the world for opportunity during the current energy transition, one of the most vibrant regional markets is often forgotten due to its geography. I’m talking about Australia, that down under market which is forging a path of energy market innovation forward with few rivals on the world stage.   A report by energy network Australia and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) forecasts that by 2050 almost 2/3 of all customers in Australia will feature some form of distributed energy resources (DER.)1…