Advanced grid solutions are a deployment priority – US grid report

The US Department of Energy’s ‘liftoff’ grid report calls for accelerated deployment of key commercially available but underutilised advanced grid technologies and applications.

Following hot on the heels of studies on the large-scale reconductoring of powerlines and grid-enhancing technologies, the new report addresses these and others, pointing to their potential to address near-term capacity and reliability priorities and modernise the grid without increasing costs for customers.

Among the others, some twenty technologies reviewed are situational awareness and system automation tools such as advanced distribution management systems and foundational digitalisation and communications technologies.

Deploying these solutions in the US today could increase the effective transmission and distribution capacity to support 20-100GW of incremental peak demand when installed individually while improving reliability, resilience and affordability, the report states.

Have you read?
Advanced conductors – an unsung approach to unlocking transmission grid capacity
Bid to incentivise grid enhancing technology deployment in US
Canada is poised for smart grid evolution

With at least 91GW of peak demand growth expected within the next decade, these advanced grid solutions are an important bridge to address near-term needs while new infrastructure is built.

Moreover, most solutions could be deployed on the existing grid in under three to five years and at lower cost and greater value than conventional approaches.

However, while deployment is underway, adoption at scale and associated industry know-how is lagging largely due to a lack of industry incentives and prioritisation with the significant upfront effort required.

For smaller utilities and cooperatives in particular, the upfront cost can be a challenge.

Pathways to liftoff

The Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Innovative Grid Deployment report indicates that ‘liftoff’ will be achieved when utilities and regulators comprehensively value and integrate advanced solutions as part of core grid investment, planning and operations.

When the technologies are fairly evaluated and compensated – alongside the conventional options used today – they can be ensured as the most efficient and effective solution to meeting customer needs.

The report also suggests that achieving ‘liftoff’ within three to five years is possible by deploying up to 12 large-scale operational, no regrets deployments across a diverse set of utility contexts for each advanced grid technology, either individually or in combination.

Four priorities should be simultaneously addressed during these deployments to derisk and drive adoption at scale:

• Building and sharing the bank of industry evidence for the technology value proposition, with outcomes from the deployments shared across industry players and regulators.
• Developing implementation and operational know-how on the procurement, installation, operation and maintenance of the advanced technologies.
• Refining planning and investment case approaches with an understanding of and methods for comprehensively evaluating the benefits and costs of these technologies.
• Aligning economic models and incentives to ensure certainty on how solutions will be paid for and, for profit-motivated operators, if they can generate sufficient financial returns to warrant investment.

Such an approach also could help to overcome the perpetual piloting that new grid technologies are often stuck in across utilities today, the report notes.

It adds that through more efficient and equitable investment approaches, grid operators and regulators can start deploying these advanced grid solutions without increasing costs for residential ratepayers.

For example, using just one-fifth of the current conventional asset replacement investments to proactively upgrade assets with advanced grid solutions would double industry-wide investment in advanced solutions while improving grid capacity and reliability outcomes without adding costs to ratepayers.

GRIP programme

Moreover, advantage can be taken of the federal investment and policy incentives that are available today, such as the $10.5 billion Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) programme to enhance the flexibility and resilience of the grid.

Of this $3.46 million was awarded to 58 projects in October 2023, while a further $3.9 billion is now available in the second round currently underway.

The liftoff reports are aimed to provide a common fact base for dialogue with the private sector on pathways to commercial liftoff of energy technologies.