Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), along with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, PJM, Avista, and CAISO, will develop a sustainable data evolution technology (SDET) to create open-access transmission and distribution power grid datasets as well as data creation tools that the grid community can use to create new datasets based on user requirements and changing grid complexity. The SDET approach will derive features and metrics from many private datasets provided by PNNL's industry partners. For transmission systems, PNNL will develop advanced, graph-theory based techniques and statistical approaches to reproduce the derived features and metrics in synthetic power systems models. For distribution systems, the team will use anonymization and obfuscation techniques and apply them to datasets from utility partners.

If successful, PNNL’s project will accelerate the development of new power system optimization algorithms by enabling more comprehensive and transparent testing. New grid optimization algorithms could increase the grid’s resiliency and flexibility, improving its security during extreme weather and other threats. Moreover, the team’s technology could enable greater integration of renewable electricity onto the grid, which would help reduce reliance on carbon-emitting, fossil fuel generation. Finally, the project could lead to greater efficiencies for grid operators and power generators and therefore help reduce operating costs.