Energy Department invests $7.5 million to boost grid reliability and resilience with data analytics

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) today announced the recipients of $7.5 million in funding for projects that will leverage cutting-edge data analytics and sensor technologies to enhance grid reliability and resilience. The initiative underscores OE’s commitment to ensuring a reliable, resilient, and secure power system in the face of the growing integration of renewables and distributed energy resources (DERs).

“These projects are essential to strengthening and securing our electric grid,” said Gene Rodrigues, deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Electricity. “They will help utilities quickly identify and resolve issues, ensuring reliable power. We are focused on rapid and widespread implementation to support America’s growing appetite for clean, affordable, renewable energy.”

Selected projects will demonstrate advanced monitoring and control capabilities needed to modernize the national grid. These efforts will leverage the latest advances in data analytics to address system challenges and improve overall grid performance.

Selected key project elements

• Arizona State University: $999,999 to develop sensor data analysis software tools to enable advanced monitoring and control of energy systems using DERs, addressing uncertainties resulting from system and weather conditions.
• Guam Energy Authority: $1,000,000 to create a cloud-based, real-time monitoring tool to detect and localize grid oscillations and other adverse events in highly integrated renewable energy systems.
• Iowa State University of Science and Technology: $1,000,000 to increase utility awareness of the current health of distribution transformers to minimize service disruptions and improve system reliability and resiliency.
• New York University: $1,000,000 to develop a suite of software tools to improve secondary distribution network visibility through advanced network-level data analysis.
• North Dakota State University: $513,949 to develop a graph-based analytical tool to monitor and manage stability issues in grids with a large share of inverter-based resources.
• University of California – Riverside: $1,000,000 to leverage analytics for data cleansing, event detection, classification, and network edge monitoring.
• University of Kentucky: $999,933 to improve transformer capacity utilization, reduce overloads, and improve load modeling and event detection to reduce grid outage times.
• Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO): $1,012,316 to enable dynamic operational envelopes.

Impact on consumers and utilities

Developing and deploying advanced data analytics technologies in the power grid can improve the reliability, resilience, and affordability of the electric system by helping utilities understand system weaknesses and enable rapid network connections for both load and resources. As a result, this work will help:

• Keep the lights on: Greater grid security and reliability means fewer power outages for end users and faster connection of new loads.
• We care about your safety: Fewer power outages affecting critical services such as hospitals, emergency response systems and public transport translate into positive outcomes for public health and safety.
• Keep energy affordable: When utilities spend less time and money responding to power grid disruptions and make better use of existing infrastructure, customers will enjoy better, more cost-effective service.

Learn more about OE.