Siemens selected by DOE for $6.4 million project to strengthen resilience of U.S. power system and critical infrastructure

Siemens Corporate Technology (CT) US, Siemens central research and development (R&D) unit in the U.S., announced it was selected for a $6.4 million research award from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to advance solar energy’s role in strengthening the resilience of the U.S. electricity grid.

This project will create an innovative Energy Management System that can coordinate distributed microgrids to work together. The system will utilize diverse technologies to increase grid resilience against natural disasters or cyber-attacks as well as autonomously restore power during a blackout using smart inverters.

CT US was selected as a part of the Energy Department’s effort to invest in new projects that enable grid operators to rapidly detect physical and cyber-based abnormalities in the power system and utilize solar generation to recover quickly from power outages. Siemens is one of several projects that will develop grid management technologies that show how solar energy will enhance power system resilience, especially at critical infrastructure sites. Collaborative efforts between Siemens and the DOE are expected to begin by Summer 2019.

“Siemens technologies are helping to modernize the U.S. electric grid and develop stronger, more resilient power systems that can detect and defend against physical and cyber-threats and support smart infrastructures,” said Ulrich Muenz, Siemens CT Head of the Autonomous Systems and Control Research Group. “This project advances innovative research and development for technologies that could one day become standard across the industry to enhance and protect critical infrastructure through autonomous and resilient energy management systems.”

The Siemens CT team will be led by Ulrich Muenz and Sindhu Suresh and work with partners from DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Columbia University, Siemens Digital Grid and Holy Cross Energy to develop, validate, and demonstrate a highly innovative, three-layer Energy Management System (EMS) for Autonomous and Resilient Operation of Energy systems with RenewaAbles (AURORA).

This project continues CT’s collaborative work with the DOE’s U.S. National Laboratories to strengthen, enhance, and modernize the nation’s electric grid and critical infrastructure. In January 2019, CT signed an MOU with National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), to conduct integrated experiments within their respective research and development facilities to help integrate innovative power electronic devices with the electric grid, including smart inverters for solar panels, batteries, and electrical vehicles that are capable of supporting the nation’s power system.

“The increasing deployment of distributed solar resources gives grid operators like Holy Cross Energy an opportunity to rethink the design and operation of our electric power system, in ways that utilize these local assets to not only deliver value to the consumer, but also to enable and enhance the reliability and resilience of the power systems in which they are embedded. By working with Siemens and collaborators in this very important project, we will get a window into the future self-driving grid and discover the most important steps we need to take to get ourselves ready for it,” says Bryan Hannegan, CEO of Holy Cross Energy.