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Cognitive Asset and Energy Management for Utility-Scale Distributed Energy Resources and Microgrid Systems

1

Background & Problem Statement:

The widespread Distributed Energy Resources (DER) proliferation has introduced critical  challenges to the energy industry over the years. As the deployment of renewable energy  resources accelerates, the complexity and uncertainty of the management system  grow exponentially. Aged infrastructures and control solutions are limiting the utilities in providing more efficient and robust systems. Ranial Systems, partnered with Power Edison from New Jersey, addressed these issues with its innovative solutions and delivered the  world’s largest mobile energy storage system to one of the largest utilities in the Northeast US. The fleet of storage and integrated CognitEMS™ platform is designed to deliver an agile  solution for peak shaving, balance, and optimizing the distribution grid in real time while  reducing voltage excursions and maintaining system reliability and power quality across the  network

2

Approach

The patented solution offered by Ranial Systems addresses the limitations of the existing DER  management systems (DERMS) available in the market. The existing DERMS rely on  predetermined setpoint values and responses to the events that have already occurred in the  system. This reactive approach requires 24/7 manual intervention and results in high operating  costs, low efficiency, and considerable energy wastage. Moreover, this fail-safe operation  practice will diminish the asset’s life-time-value. Mission critical operations performed through  cloud native DERMS are not reliable in terms of addressing the critical need in a timely fashion.  

Ranial Systems introduced a proactive control strategy using hybrid system:

  1. Site controllers  can be integrated with OT systems and Utility SCADA applications to offer real-time operational  intelligence and ubiquitous control operations and,
  2. The cloud system offers real-time  monitoring of the DER systems, managing alarms, rules and AI models deployed at the  edge controller, based on the operational needs. It also provides various business intelligence  reports based on the real-time performance metrices.

However, most of the mission  critical operations and intelligent controls are executed at the site controller level to  maximize responsiveness. The deployment topology of the mobile energy storage system  could leverage the real-time predictive operations, gain situational awareness, and instantly act  on operational needs.

3

Solution

The CognitEMS™ offers modular system components. The Edge application is compliant with  Sunspec information model specification 1.9 (4000 + instruction sets supporting 6 types of DER  assets) and offer Modbus and OPC interfaces to integrate SCADA/ ADMS systems. Such  integration facilitates operator and NOC operations through a seamless integration of utility  O&M systems. The prebuild AI powered models and rules can intercept the sensory feeds and  execute intelligent operations in:  

  • Enhancing system resiliency and reliability by detecting anomies 
  • Predictive operations to shift load away to achieve best price performance. Prescriptive load shaping to Improving load factor. 
  • Minimizing system losses through phase balancing and improved power factor (Volt/ VAR, Watt/VAR optimization, Constant VAR, and power factor correction)
  • Prescriptive insights to managing voltage profiles -, voltage and frequency ride through. Managing congestion and circuit overloads, which defers capital expenditures. Economic dispatch and other grid services to bulk power and electricity markets Intelligent services to facilitate Supervisory charge/ discharge, Renewable Ramping/ smoothing operations. 

The following diagram depicts the solution architecture and deployment topology of Ranial’s Integrated Asset and Energy Management platform:

 

The cloud platform is designed to monitor and manage multiple sites/ plats, logging Alarms/  notifications, configuring remote DER assets. It also offers historians and self-service dashboards  to curate various KPIs as needed. The Real time AI models offer unique set of KPIs to facilitate  real-time predictive maintenance and condition-based monitoring: 

  • Circuit loading and voltage assessment by each phase for real-time situational awareness, circuit condition and load forecasting, and “what-if” analysis. 
  • Proactive indicators on coordinated scheduling and optimization of DER asset operations for resiliency, reliability, and economic objectives. 
  • Optimized dispatch for Circuit and feeder load relief and Volt/VAR management DR-DER dispatch and control for both individual and aggregated assets. Proactive intelligence on Active and reactive power dispatch and scheduling, phase balancing, and loss minimization. 
  • Realtime visibility and centralized operation to manage Supply of capacity, energy, ancillary services, and frequency regulation using DR and DER assets. 
  • Direct, two-way communication with DER assets to provide measurement, monitoring, control, scheduling, dispatch, settlement, and reporting.
  • Intelligent models to aggregate DR/DER assets into Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) that can  be used to provide new bulk power services like load following/ramping and Primary Frequency Response (PFR). 
  • Dynamic rule engine to provision custom monitoring rules on the edge/ site controllers to  facilitate need-based monitoring functions. 

The muti-tenant CognitEMS™ cloud platform offers single pane of glass to manage multiple sites,  model microgrid operations and deploy intelligent autonomous sequencing, controlling and  monitoring.

 

4

Implementation

The following depicts the integration approach of the utility scale DER / BESS fleets supporting 6  MW mobile BESS deployment for a major utility company located at Northeast USA. The dynamic  controls and DER/ microgrid operations can be achieved by these systems on demand by  relocating the trailers to specific substation or a remote renewable plant.

 

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