DOE’s Office of Electric Power Announces $7.5 Million to Improve Grid Reliability and Resilience Through Data Analytics

The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electric Power (OE) has announced the recipients of $7.5 million in funding to support projects that leverage cutting-edge data analytics and sensor technologies to enhance the reliability and resilience of power grids.

This initiative underscores OE’s commitment to ensuring a reliable, resilient and secure electricity system with the increasing integration of renewable energy sources and distributed energy resources (DERs).

“These projects are essential to strengthening and securing our electric grid,” said Gene Rodrigues, assistant secretary of the Office of Electricity. “They will help utilities quickly identify and resolve issues, ensuring reliable power.”

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.

Arizona State University: $999,999 to develop sensor data analysis software tools to enable advanced monitoring and control of energy systems with DERs, addressing uncertainties resulting from system and weather conditions.

Guam Power Authority: $1,000,000 to develop a cloud-based, real-time monitoring tool to detect and localize grid oscillations and other adverse events in systems with high levels of renewable energy integration.

Iowa State University of Science and Technology: $1,000,000 to increase utilities’ awareness of the current health of distribution transformers to minimize service disruptions and improve system reliability and resiliency.

New York University: $1 million to develop a suite of software tools to improve visibility of secondary distribution networks through advanced grid-level data analytics.

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 million 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 the duration of grid outages.

Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO): $1,012,316 to enable dynamic operating ranges.

Developing and deploying advanced data analytics technologies in the power grid will improve the reliability, resilience and affordability of the power system by helping utilities understand system vulnerabilities and enabling 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.

Stay safe: Fewer power outages that impact critical services like hospitals, emergency response systems and public transportation translate into positive public health and safety outcomes.

Keeping energy affordable: When utilities spend less time and money responding to grid disruptions and make better use of existing infrastructure, customers benefit from better, more cost-effective services.