ProsumerGrid, Inc. was engaged by the Electric Power Board (EPB) of Chattanooga, TN to assist with the strategic long-term planning evaluation of distributed energy resources (solar PV, energy storage, building improvements and electric vehicles) at the distribution system-level to understand the most cost-effective portfolio of resources and their effects on electric utility revenue margins, wholesale-costs and economic impact. ProsumerGrid performed optimal planning and scheduling of utility-scale and behind-the-meter (BTM) distributed energy resources (DERs) to estimate these benefits and costs. The project had the following specific objectives:

  • Explore the feasibility of data source integration including: distribution circuits, smart meter data, DER techno-economic data and building improvement profiles.
  • Analyze the impact and potential benefits of DERs and improved building solutions.
  • Model, simulate and study different scenarios and sensitivities and their impacts on the size and location of DERs, utility’s cost and revenues, as well as, customers’ benefits.

The analysis used the ProsumerGrid Grid+DER Planning Studio® that is based on advanced optimization models that select the optimal types of energy resources, their sizes and locations from a defined input set of energy supply options to meet the expected electric load profile over a multi-year (this study was 20 years) planning horizon and at hourly temporal resolution while meeting all system requirements and strategic objectives. These requirements are translated into monetary values of project capital and operational costs as well as benefits, such as, avoided costs. The optimization model also minimizes the total net costs. Three options were considered for the total net cost as the objective function of the optimization including the utility’s cost, global (utility and customers) cost, and utility’s cost minus customers’ bills (revenue maximization).

The system studied was an EPB distribution feeder model with 3000+ nodes, 3000+ branches (overhead lines, underground cables, transformers, etc.) and 1200+ loads each having individual one-year historical timeseries AMI data at hourly granularity.

About EPB
EPB is one of the most advanced and highly-automated utilities in the U.S. EPB offers energy and fiber optic services to more than 170k customers in Chattanooga and portions of surrounding counties in TN and GA.