Idaho National Laboratory to oversee 15 new projects
As part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s $220 million Grid Modernization Initiative, the Idaho National Laboratory will oversee four projects and collaborate on eleven more. The program includes 14 national laboratories.
Funding levels are expected to amount to roughly $10 million through September 2018.
The projects follow a 2012 White House report that said outages caused by severe weather typically cost the United States economy between $18 billion and $33 billion a year from lost output and wages, spoiled inventory, delayed production and disruptions to energy distribution.
Energy Systems and Technologies Division engineer Rob Hovsapian said INL’s Real-Time Power and Energy Lab will play a significant part in the research. Several projects will use the lab’s expertise and infrastructure to analyze aspects of advanced power and energy systems in real time.
The INL-led projects include:
Smart Reconfiguration of Idaho Falls Power distribution network
The $1 million two-year collaboration with the city of Idaho Falls aims to make the city’s municipal power distribution more robust and dependable. Idaho Falls Power Director Jackie Flowers said the idea of working with INL came after an outage in December 2013 left city residents without electricity for hours in subzero cold. Idaho Falls and INL will work with Schweitzer Engineering Labs, Washington State University and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems to test smart reconfiguration. INL’s Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) allows engineers to model how the city can spread load evenly during times of high demand. Battery research at the lab will allow the utility to explore ways to store energy from its hydroelectric and wind turbines.
Systems Research Supporting Standards and Interoperability
The project seeks to understand how plug-in electric vehicle charging will affect the grid and how disturbances on the grid could affect PEVs. This project will leverage capabilities of multiple national laboratories to perform “hardware-in-the-loop” studies that integrate communication and control system hardware with simulation and analysis activities. The $3.6 million, three-year project includes Siemens Engineering, Bonneville Power Administration, DTE Energy, Eversource, University of Delaware, California Energy Commission and USDRIVE Grid Interaction Technical Team.
Diagnostic Security Modules for Electric Vehicles to Building Integration
The overall goal of this project is to develop a Diagnostic Security Module framework to protect against cyberattacks that might come through communications systems required for PEV charging and load management. INL will lead a consortium of national labs and private partners including University of Louisiana-Lafayette, ChargePoint, and California Energy Commission. The project will cost about $1.65 million over three years.
Weather Data to Improve Capacity of Existing Power Lines
This $2.35 million project could increase the capacity of existing power lines using modeling and weather station data. In areas where wind plants are being developed, wind blowing on a high-voltage line can cool it enough to safely increase the amount of current it can carry by 10 to 40 percent. INL’s work includes a transmission line planning and routing toolkit and Human Factors R&D to help integrate weather and simulation information into control room operations. Partners include Idaho Power Company, WindSim, Altalink, Alberta Electric System Operator, StormGEO, Stantec and Oregon State University.
