Atlanta, GA – ProsumerGrid announced today that it was awarded $3 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The funding will be used to develop a highly specialized and interactive software tool capable of simulating the operation of emerging Distribution System Operators (DSOs) which includes the optimization of millions of distributed energy resources.
“DSOs will transform distribution systems as we know them. They have been proposed in California, are a central piece of the New York Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) initiative, and are being considered in several other states. While there are many propositions regarding DSO design, a tool that can simulate DSO operations and that can support testing of those propositions, does not exist today. Our team is developing a software solution that allows electric utilities to simulate and optimize the operation of the DSO”, said Dr. Santiago Grijalva, Chairman of ProsumerGrid.
ProsumerGrid received this competitive award from ARPA-E’s OPEN 2015 program, which serves as an open call to scientists and engineers for transformational technologies outside the scope of ARPA-E’s existing focused programs. Through both open and focused solicitations, ARPA-E funds technologies that display technical promise and commercial impact but are early for private-sector investment.
The team formed by ProsumerGrid, NRECA, Southern California Edison, The New York State Smart Grid Consortium, and ICF International will develop a highly specialized and interactive software tool capable of simulating the operation of emerging Distribution System Operators (DSOs). The software will utilize powerful, decentralized optimization and decision-making algorithms that would allow grid managers and market actors to evaluate the effect of new distributed energy resources (DER), market and regulatory rules, and business processes at the distribution system level and beyond. The team’s software will enable the development of DER scheduling logic, DSO market rules, energy service transactions, and economic assessment analytics.
For additional information about ARPA-E, please visit www.arpa-e.energy.gov.
