Albany and Connecticut Universities to collaborate in grid resilience projects

Researchers from UAlbany and UConn in the Northeast US will work together to provide risk assessments and grid resilience investment guidance to several states in the region.

The researchers are coming together under two Department of Energy (DoE) financed projects to conduct grid resilience analysis and modelling to strengthen and modernise the power grid against extreme weather.

UAlbany will use numerical weather prediction models and leverage previous climate change studies to identify key trends across the states for different climate hazards and potential climate scenarios.

UConn will use an outage prediction model, along with risk assessment tools, that considers the intersection of climate, outage and socioeconomic risk to drive grid resilience recommendations.

The two Northeast grid resilience projects were awarded $2.63 million as part of a larger bout of funding after submissions for Grid Resilience Analysis and Climate Change Impacts (GRACI). In total, six projects investigating grid resilience received $4.6 million.

Commenting in a release was Chris Thorncroft, director of UAlbany’s Atmospheric Sciences Research Center and Center of Excellence in Weather & Climate Analytics: “We are thrilled to partner once again with UConn, along with other researchers and industry innovators, to help strengthen the power grid for vulnerable Northeast communities.

“This work will advance research and cutting-edge technologies to improve energy industry efficiency and reliability in the face of a rapidly changing climate and global transition to clean energy sources.”

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Added professor Emmanouil Anagnostou, interim director of the UConn Tech Park and director of the Eversource Energy Center: “The northeastern United States is the exemplar regional case for energy transition to electrification and renewables while highly exposed to risk of disasters from natural hazards, such as hurricanes, severe nor’easters and winter storms.

“These risks are projected to increase in severity and frequency across the region, as are heat waves and intense precipitation events, creating unique challenges to power grid resilience.”

Said Maria Robinson, director of the GDO at the DOE: “Keeping the lights on for communities across the country is a primary goal of the Grid Deployment Office (GDO)…GDO provides multiple financial mechanisms and investment programmes to support state efforts, but this is not always enough. Each geographic region is different, with varying extreme weather impact challenges and grid resilience goals.

“This programme will allow states to leverage existing tools, methods and processes to help identify a solution that works for their individual region, while providing the highest level of community benefits.”

The projects under the GRACI programme will be managed by ENERGYWERX, a collaboration made possible through a partnership agreement set up by DOE’s Office of Technology of Transitions.

The agreement enables ENERGYWERX to broaden DOE’s engagement with outside partners, facilitating the rapid development, scaling and deployment of clean energy solutions.