The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) has announced the allocation of $7.5 million to support innovative projects aimed at advancing grid reliability and resilience. These initiatives will leverage cutting-edge data analytics and sensor technologies to ensure a more secure and dependable electricity system amidst the increasing integration of renewable energy sources and distributed energy resources (DERs).

"These projects are essential for making our electric grid stronger and more secure," said Gene Rodrigues, Assistant Secretary, Office of Electricity. "They will help utilities quickly identify and solve problems, ensuring a reliable power supply. We're laser-focused on rapid and widespread implementation to support America’s growing appetite for clean, affordable renewable energy."

The selected projects will demonstrate advanced monitoring and control capabilities crucial for modernizing the nation’s power grid. By utilizing the latest advancements in data analytics, these efforts aim to address system challenges and improve overall grid performance.

Selected Project Highlights:

• Arizona State University: $999,999 to develop sensor data analytics software tools for advanced monitoring and control of power systems with DERs, addressing uncertainties induced by system and weather conditions.
• Guam Power Authority: $1,000,000 to create a cloud-based real-time monitoring tool to detect and locate grid oscillations and other adverse events in systems with high levels of renewable energy integration.
• Iowa State University of Science and Technology: $1,000,000 to enhance utilities’ awareness of real-time health conditions of distribution transformers, minimizing service disruptions and improving system reliability and resilience.
• New York University: $1,000,000 to develop a software tool suite for improving visibility of secondary distribution networks through advanced grid-level data analytics.
• North Dakota State University: $513,949 to develop a graph-based analytics tool for monitoring and managing stability issues in grids with high inverter-based resource penetration.
• University of California – Riverside: $1,000,000 to use analytics for data cleaning, event detection, classification, and grid-edge monitoring.
• University of Kentucky: $999,933 to improve transformer capacity utilization, reduce overloading, and enhance load modeling and event detection to minimize grid outage times.
• Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO): $1,012,316 to enable dynamic operating envelopes.

Source: energy.gov