Earlier this month, National Grid announced the launch of an integrated transactive energy platform in Buffalo, NY. The pilot program will integrate renewable resources from member institutions of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus with the local distribution grid, offering market compensation to the producers.
The project, launched in coordination with BNMC and Opus One Solutions, is part of National Grid’s efforts to support New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s “Reforming the Energy Vision,” or REV. The Governor’s comprehensive energy strategy sets ambitious goals for the state, including sourcing half of all electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
For skeptics of distributed energy resources, National Grid’s DSP (distributed system platform) could provide important data regarding the feasibility, efficiency, and reliability of scalable distributed energy.
In a press release announcing the project, the Fortune 500 utility said that “creating a transactive energy marketplace through a DSP provides new revenue streams for resource owners and creates incentives for new resource investment by reducing the total cost of ownership. For National Grid and its customers, it allows for better management of the existing distribution system and creates value by helping direct resources to circuits where there is need, increasing overall efficiency.”
Paul Tyno, Strategic Advisor for Energy Initiatives for BNMC sees the move as “a win-win for customers and for the grid itself, since the use of this leading-edge technology makes the grid stronger; more resilient and reliable.”
Joshua Wong, President and CEO at Opus One Solutions, anticipates “increased and value-added distributed energy development, implementation and operation. The system provides benefits to the utility as a platform, to DER providers as market participants, and ultimately, to consumers with greater choice and a cleaner, more resilient, and more efficient grid.”
National Grid plans to expand the range of their platform to customers in other parts of Buffalo and New York, introducing a “wider variety of technologies” to the DSP. The initial phase of testing will run through October 2019.
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