Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) and Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC) have been awarded a US$3.24 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) to demonstrate the use of energy storage to stabilise high penetrations of solar energy into Texas’ electric grid.
The grant is under the DOE’s SunShot Initiative. The project will be led by AMS, but Opus One Solutions and Gridbright are also involved in the partnership with the PEC – the largest electric distribution cooperative in the nation.
The AMS Armada platform will be used to design, optimise and manage distributed solar and other distributed energy resources (DER) that maximise behind-the-meter at end-use customer sites and Opus One’s GridOS software platform will provide full grid visibility, DER optimisation, and real-time transactional capability to PEC at the distribution system level.
“Texas is the new frontier for integrating renewable energy into the electric grid,” said AMS CEO Susan Kennedy. “The enormous penetration of wind and solar in Texas has created significant challenges in managing the distribution grid. PEC is taking on a challenge the whole country is facing.”
“This project will demonstrate end-to-end optimization of DER resources and give distribution operators the situational awareness and control needed to maintain grid reliability while cost-effectively serving our members,” added Peter Muhoro, PEC Chief Strategy Officer.
AMS partnered on a similar project with the Texas Electric Cooperatives (TEC) a 200kWh energy storage system at its Master Distribution Centre in Georgetown, Texas, for reducing TEC’s peak energy demand as well as providing stability and frequency regulation to the electric grid.
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