Mass electrification is one of the primary drivers of load growth, but what if part of the problem could be part of the solution?
Energy management companies Landis+Gyr and SPAN envision a future in which utilities can flexibly manage the loads of electric vehicles (EVs), heat pumps, and behind-the-meter battery energy storage to make the grid more efficient and resilient.
At DISTRIBUTECH (DTECH), Landis+Gyr and SPAN announced a strategic partnership to commercialize the first-of-its-kind SPAN Edge product, an intelligent service point that reimagines the grid edge by transforming homes into powerful distribution assets. Purpose-built for utilities, SPAN Edge enables homeowners to add behind-the-meter assets while giving utilities the foresight to avoid costly service upgrades and unlock unprecedented orchestration at the grid edge. It grants reliable, flexible load-shaping benefits beyond traditional non-wires alternatives (NWAs), per the companies.
“As load growth continues to increase, one of the constraints utilities face is around the optimization of the local distribution system and the infrastructure necessary to support that load growth,” Ryan Harris, chief revenue officer at SPAN, told Factor This on the expo show floor at DTECH. Harris added that the intelligent service point enables faster and more cost-effective deployment of SPAN firm service limit and dynamic service limit capabilities.
The second wave of AMI poses all sorts of challenges to utilities, which need to manage load growth responsibly, posits Amith Kota, chief product and technology officer at Landis+Gyr.
“Utilities are challenged now to say: How can I do this better? One way is to drive demand-side flexibility,” Kota suggested.
Managing a whole home as a load enables utilities to drive flexibility in a totally different way, enabling the planning of a much more resilient grid. But can a utility really rely on distributed energy resources (DERs) the same way it might account for a traditional energy source?
“Utilities are looking for dependability that an asset is going to show up when they require it,” confirmed SPAN’s Harris. “Traditionally, demand response programs have struggled to be localized enough to affect the primary and secondary distribution layer… In partnership with Landis, what we’re really focused on is trying to make sure that load shape is dependable so that utility grid planners can actually incorporate this type of capability into the way they view grid infrastructure and the way they plan their resources.”
Check out the video embedded in this post for more from Harris and Kota (great name for a traveling comedy duo, if I’ve ever heard one) on how DERs are allowing utilities to rethink demand response and resiliency.
