Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will develop and test a hierarchical control framework for coordinating the flexibility of a full range of DERs, including flexible building loads, to supply reserves to the electric power grid. The hierarchical control framework consists of incentive-based control strategies across multiple time-scales. The system will use a slower incentive-based approach to acquire flexible assets that provide services, combined with faster device-level controls that use minimal communication to provide desired responses to the grid. Each DER that chooses to participate will communicate its ability to provide flexibility and the time scale over which it can provide the service. A distribution reliability coordinator will act as an interface between the DERs and the bulk system, coordinating the resources in an economic and reliable manner. The team will characterize various DER types to quantify the maximum flexibility that can be extracted from a collection of DERs in aggregate in order to provide service-level guarantees to the bulk energy market operator. The performance of the resulting hierarchical control system will be tested at scale in a co-simulation environment spanning transmission, distribution, ancillary markets, and communication systems.

If successful, projects included in the NODES Program will develop innovative hardware and software solutions to integrate and coordinate generation, transmission, and end-use energy systems at various points on the electric grid. These control systems will enable real-time coordination between distributed generation, such as rooftop and community solar assets and bulk power generation, while proactively shaping electric load. This will alleviate periods of costly peak demand, reduce wasted energy, and increase renewables penetration on the grid.