Grid orchestration alliance launched in North America

The Total Grid Orchestration (TGO) Alliance has been launched by utilities and technology providers in the US and Canada to deliver the energy transition.

The Alliance, which is co-chaired by Black & Veatch and Hydro Ottawa, is intended as a collaborative forum to develop an industrywide framework for grid orchestration across planning, engineering and operation.

Work is planned on new approaches to systemwide coordination, situational awareness and risk management across the entire grid, enabling alignment and integration between near-term operational decisions and long-term planning.

Guillaume Paradis, chief operating officer of Hydro Ottawa, says the TGO Alliance is a timely effort to bridge traditional boundaries of generation, transmission and distribution in the power sector to ensure system inefficiencies are reduced in delivering the energy transition.

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“Although market mechanisms will be important to support and respond to the broad growth in energy demand, we must also ensure energy decision making is done in consideration of all potential value-creating options and avoid optimising at the local level and delivering sub-optimal results for customers.”

Joe Zhou, vice president and senior managing director for Black & Veatch, adds that the goal in forming the Alliance is to optimise the electric grid to deliver better outcomes through a balanced and scalable approach.

“This alliance has been formed to optimise grid lifecycle management and bridge the gap between planning and operations to support the energy transition and ensure a reliable and sustainable grid. By joining forces with utilities across the US and Canada, each member has a sounding board for the challenges they face, along with a space to share knowledge and move the industry forward.”

In addition to Hydro Ottawa and Black & Veatch, other founding members include the utilities CPS Energy, Public Service of New Mexico and Rappahannock Electric Cooperative in the US and Essex Power and PUC Services in Canada, and technology providers Landis+Gyr, Uplight and ThinkLabs.

Kayleigh HasBrouck, managing consultant at Black & Veatch, has been appointed as the manager of the TGO Alliance to oversee and coordinate its activities.

Membership is open to utilities and technology companies that share the vision of orchestrating the grid to deliver the energy transition.