On November 6, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it would provide $128 million in funding for 75 projects intending to advance solar technologies through the Solar Energy Technologies Office Fiscal Year 2019 (SETO FY2019) funding program. This program will provide $50 million for 15 research projects that aim to improve the ability of grid operators to integrate increasing amounts of solar generation onto the grid in a cost-effective, secure, resilient and reliable manner. Brian Johnson, the Washington Research Foundation Innovation Assistant Professor of Clean Energy and Electrical & Computer Engineering, will be leading the grant for the University of Washington across three years.
The UW project “A Scalable Control Architecture for 100% PV Penetration with Grid Forming Inverters” will develop two new kinds of controls for managing solar energy systems that will be immune to communication outages and compatible with small solar energy systems as well as the power grid.
The grants were announced by the Energy Department’s Solar Technologies Office on behalf of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The project team will collectively provide an additional required $2.1 million “cost share total,” to bring the total to $7 million.
University of Washington
Project Name
A Scalable Control Architecture for 100% PV Penetration with Grid Forming Inverters
Project Summary
This project will develop two kinds of grid-forming controls: fast communication-free controls for inverters for solar-plus-storage systems, and slower controls that use a distributed communication architecture for system-wide energy management. These controls will be immune to communication outages and be compatible with small solar energy systems as well as the bulk power grid.
Partners
Enphase Energy, University of Minnesota, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Electric Power Research Institute
Location
Seattle, WA
DOE Award Amount
$4.9 million
Cost Share
$2.1 million
The Solar Energy Technologies Office Fiscal Year 2019 (SETO FY2019) funding program supports projects that will improve the affordability, reliability and performance of solar technologies on the national grid. This program funds projects that advance early-stage systems integration, photovoltaic (PV), and concentrating solar-thermal power technologies and reduce the non-hardware costs associated with installing solar energy systems.
Approach
Systems integration projects will better enable grid operators to add increasing amounts of solar generation onto the grid in a cost-effective, secure, resilient, and reliable manner. The three subtopics will focus on adaptive distribution protection, grid services from behind-the-meter solar and other distributed energy resources, and advanced PV controls and cybersecurity.
Objectives
Projects in this funding program will address the technical challenges facing system operators to integrate higher penetration of solar generation. These projects will result in technologies that improve the protection distribution power system, enhance the visibility and control of PV inverters and plants, and realize the benefits of distributed PV to help supplement grid services while improving the security of those devices from cyberattacks.
Learn more about the SETO FY2019 funding program and the solar office’s other systems integration awards.
