Smarter Grid Solutions | National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Active Management Integration: June 2015 - November 2016

This report presents the project results for the NREL INTEGRATE demonstration project: Active Network Management (ANM) Integration. Consistent with the INTEGRATE program's objective of increasing the grid's clean energy hosting capacity and providing grid services in a holistic manner, the project demonstrated the use of ANM to enable very high penetrations of solar PV and wind energy systems. Results obtained using a representative North American distribution system showed ANM's autonomous distributed control doubled the interconnected wind and solar systems by managing thermal and voltage constraints in real-time. These generators flexibly interconnected to the grid via ANM's end-to-end control architecture, and were managed and coordinated with other smart distributed energy resources (DER; e.g. EVs, battery ESS, controllable load) to unlock the grid's dynamic hosting capacity. As a smart grid application to standardize grid integration of diverse renewable generation sources, ANM provides the industry with a scalable, cost-effective alternative to traditional transmission and distribution (T&D) reinforcements. This project considered three use cases of the application of ANM: a Smart Home demonstration of ANM control of residential scale devices (PV, EV, and battery ESS); a Smart Campus demonstration of high penetration megawatt-scale DER (PV, EVs, battery ESS, and controllable load) behind a single point-of-common-coupling (PCC), and a Smart Distribution demonstration that combined prior use cases along with additional community/utility-scale DER at very high aggregate penetration levels. The Smart Distribution use case provided an integrated perspective of ANM across all distribution grid DER device scales (incorporating aggregated Smart Homes and the Smart Campus) in order to showcase how these devices can support smart grid services to manage DER related constraints in a safe and reliable manner; and likewise how ANM integrates with grid modernization initiatives. The ANM system was deployed in NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF), and project industry advisors attended an on-site demonstration and a set of workshops in order to review project outcomes and evaluate the relevance of ANM for increasing the grid hosting capacity. The outcomes of this effort include an assessment of opportunities for field deployment of ANM to address existing interconnection challenges, as well as consolidating project advisor suggestions for investment in ANM and potential future pilots for more advanced schemes.