Schneider helps Virginia Tech with Advanced Research

Schneider ElectricÂ’s North American Operating Division announced a partnership with the Advanced Research Institute at Virginia Tech University (Arlington, Va.) in support of its research project, Intelligent Distributed Autonomous Power Systems (IDAPS).

The Virginia Tech IDAPS project focuses on integrating distributed energy resources with demand-side management in an intelligent microgrid. Included within this research is the Square D Powerlink G3 3000 Web-enabled lighting control panel, donated by Schneider Electric.

“Virginia Tech is making great strides in developing a different approach to organize, manage and dispatch information in an intelligent microgrid,” said Scott Jordan, Square D product marketing manager. “Schneider Electric places a high priority on developing technologies that will reduce overall energy cost while improving reliability. We are pleased to be a part of Virginia Tech’s research.”

Virginia Tech professors and students are working together to explore enabling technologies that allow customer-owned appliances, such as lighting, to communicate within an IDAPS microgrid through Ethernet, LAN and WAN networks. IDAPS serves as a specialized microgrid for coordinating residential- and commercial-owned distributed energy resources (DERs) that can use generating sources more efficiently and prevent cascading failures.

The IDAPS research project is expected to take two to three years to complete, and will be executed in three progressive phases. The first phase is dedicated to exploratory research to build the broad framework of an IDAPS microgrid at a conceptual level, with the second phase geared toward modeling and simulation of the intelligent microgrid with demand-side participation. The first phase is supported by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation. Additional funding is expected from the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Defense.

“Our IDAPS research project would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors,” said Manisa Pipattanasomporn, Virginia Tech assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. “The Square D Powerlink panel is the best fit for our project and we are thrilled to be able to work with such a high-level product.”