DOE Announces $30 Million for Projects to Integrate Solar into Grid

SunShot ENERGISE Solar Grid Integration advances next-generation planning tools, data analytics, and forecasting to optimize distributed energy resources, enhance reliability and cybersecurity, and support electric vehicles and energy storage within a modernized, resilient electric grid.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy SunShot Initiative has announced up to $30 million in new projects to support the integration of solar energy into the nation’s electric grid, complementing DOE grid improvements underway, while diversifying the nation’s electricity sources and improving the reliability and security of the electric grid. SunShot will fund 13 projects with a total of up to $30 million to develop next-generation grid planning and operation tools that help to integrate more solar power with the grid.

“SunShot is working to lower the cost and complexity of integrating solar with the electric grid,” says SunShot Director Charlie Gay. “These projects give grid operators the tools to manage a modern electric grid, including synchrophasors for real-time visibility.”

SunShot selected 13 projects under the ENERGISE funding program to enable grid operators to access up-to-the-minute measurement and forecasting data from distributed energy sources and optimize system performance using sensor, communication, advanced inverters and data analytics technologies. These projects will help to improve the reliability of the nation’s energy grid by providing utilities with dynamic, automated and cost-effective management of solar and other distributed energy sources. These software and hardware solutions will be highly scalable, data-driven, and capable of fully optimizing system operation and planning.

As part of the Grid Modernization Initiative (GMI), these projects are designed to address not only solar power interconnecting with the grid at scale, but also other technologies like electric vehicles that interconnect with the grid.  GMI is an accelerated, Department-wide effort to develop the concepts, tools, and technologies needed to measure, analyze, predict, protect, and control the grid of the future.  Led by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis, and EERE, GMI looks to solve challenges like integrating conventional and renewable sources with energy storage while ensuring that the grid is resilient and secure to withstand growing cybersecurity and energy challenges.

These projects build upon current and past research in grid integration technologies that support the widespread deployment of solar energy while maintaining the reliability of the electricity infrastructure and the electricity grid. The SunShot Initiative, which is managed by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, is a collaborative national effort to drive down the cost of solar electricity and accelerate solar adoption.

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