August – DER Grid Integration, Part 1

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Written by Yiwei Ma and Aminul Huque

With the new edition of IEEE Standard 1547TM approved in 2018 and certified inverters emerging into the market, there is an increasing need to have accurate distributed energy resource (DER) models to support proper assessment of DER impacts on power systems. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has released an open-source distributed energy resource (DER) model, OpenDER, which aims to represent the functional definitions and requirements of IEEE Standard 1547-2018. It can be used to analyze steady-state and dynamic behaviors of DERs for planning and interconnection studies. EPRI has also released a publicly available model specification document, which complements the OpenDER model software to help the industry properly understand and utilize this open-source model and/or develop their own model rapidly and accurately. In addition, DER Model User’s Group (DERMUG) has been launched to review, critique, and build consensus upon the OpenDER model.

Written by Milad Mousavi

Flexibility resources are an integral part of the solutions to the intermittency associated with the unprecedented increase in variable renewable energy sources (VRES). In this regard, not only can distributed flexibility resources (DFRs) provide grid and system services, but also can offer opportunities to improve the hosting capacity (HC) of the distribution systems. Therefore, it is essential to consider the effects of DFRs on novel techniques of HC studies and the challenges ahead. Some questions arise on the matter: How do DFRs affect the HC studies’ characteristics and assessment? Subsequently, how can the affected HC studies improve the integration of distributed VRES?

Written by Faisal Sattar and Tareg Ghaoud

Nowadays, the term energy transition is trending worldwide as power systems evolve from centralized non-renewable energy sources to distributed energy resources (DERs). The high penetration of DERs will introduce new challenges to the power system operators because of their lack of visibility, intermittent nature, lack of controllability, and power quality issues that they may introduce to the network. At the same time, the high penetration of DERs will provide a significant amount of flexibility that could be utilized to improve network operations. VPPs aggregate, orchestrate, optimize and control these DERs to offer such unutilized flexibilities to the network. VPPs have been successfully deployed in the deregulated ancillary and energy markets. However, applying VPP technology in a vertically integrated utility could be a challenge. This bulletin aims to discuss the concept of VPP and its application in a vertically integrated utility.

Written by Bin Liu and Julio Braslavsky

The rapidly growing levels of distributed energy resources (DER) in Australian electricity grids are precipitating some of the most significant changes in power system operation in history. The decentralisation of power generation, storage and dispatchable loads on the distribution network requires careful coordination between transmission network operators (TSOs), distribution network operators (DSOs), and emerging DER aggregators and market operators. Operating envelopes (OEs) were introduced in various trials in Australia in 2019 as a key instrument for DSOs to maintain DER operation within the technical limits of the network and to support the integration of DER services in future electricity markets. However, the calculation and implementation of OEs pose a diversity of technical challenges that encompass network and load visibility, computational scalability, managing sensitivities and uncertainties, and fair access of customers to future infrastructure and markets.


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