The U.S. Department of Energy on April 16 released a report that it said shows how commercially available advanced grid solutions -- such as advanced conductors, dynamic line rating, and energy storage -- can cost effectively increase the existing grid’s capacity to support upwards of 20-100 gigawatts of peak demand growth.
“These technologies would also improve grid reliability, resilience, and affordability for consumers,” DOE said in releasing its latest Pathways to Commercial Liftoff report, focused on unleashing the potential of advanced grid solutions.
“Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Innovative Grid Deployment,” marks the tenth installment in the DOE Liftoff series which launched in March 2023.
Included among the report’s key findings is that near-term solutions are available.
“Multiple advanced grid solutions are commercially available today that can help utilities and regulators respond to grid pressures in the near-term -- including rapid demand growth, reliability and resilience priorities, and new energy generation connections,” the report said.
These solutions include advanced transmission (e.g., advanced conductors) and grid enhancing technologies (e.g., dynamic line rating, advanced power flow control, energy storage) as well as system automation and situational awareness solutions (e.g., advanced distribution management systems, distributed energy resource management systems). “These solutions can serve as a bridge while critically needed new grid infrastructure capacity continues to be built out long-term,” DOE said.
The report also said that the existing grid has untapped value. “Deploying these technologies could increase the capacity of the existing grid to support 20–100 GW of incremental peak demand when installed individually, while improving system reliability, resilience, and affordability.”
This capacity impact is on the order of magnitude of the 91 GW of peak demand growth that North American Electric Reliability Corporation projects for the next decade (as of December 2023).
DOE also said that solutions are low cost and quick to deploy. “Most of these solutions are less than a quarter of the cost of conventional alternatives and can be relatively quick to deploy since they make use of existing infrastructure.”
The White House has announced over $13.1 billion of funding for the nation’s transmission and distribution grid.
DOE is investing in the deployment of many advanced technologies identified in the Liftoff report through the Grid Deployment Office’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program, a $10.5 billion grant program that is enhancing grid flexibility and improving the resilience of the power system. On October 23, 2023, DOE announced the first round of GRIP funding that totaled nearly $3.5 billion and is supporting 58 projects in 44 states across the United States. This funding represents the federal government’s largest single direct investment in critical grid infrastructure and catalyzes more than $8 billion total in public and private investments.
During the first round of GRIP funding, DOE selected twelve projects that include investment in grid-enhancing technologies (GETs) like dynamic line rating (DLR) or distributed energy resource management (DERMS).
“A second GRIP funding opportunity is focused on creating comprehensive solutions that link grid communications systems and operations to increase resilience and reduce power outages and threats and deploying advanced technologies such as distributed energy resources and battery systems to provide essential grid services,” DOE noted.
