STTR Phase I: Distributed and Scalable Coordination of Solar Photovoltaic and Battery Storage Systems

该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发和验证技术，使电力能源系统能够可靠地和负担得起地使用大量可再生能源。清洁、可靠、价格合理的电力对现代社会至关重要。然而，如果实时需求与供应不匹配，风能和太阳能发电的可变性会导致灾难性的电网可靠性问题。该项目将开发和演示一个系统，用于管理分布式（例如，屋顶）太阳能光伏系统，该系统在有或没有本地电能存储（即电池）的情况下运行，以一种为客户提取最大价值的方式，同时提高电力基础设施的可靠性。该项目将利用受数百万设备在互联网上发送数据的算法启发的算法。就像互联网数据一样，能量将以离散的能量包的形式传递。这些包是独立、匿名和公平地协调的，以同时解决现实世界的网格问题并为最终用户提供价值。该项目的结果将是一个集成的软件即服务和硬件解决方案，客户将获得参与的奖励，电力行业成员通过减少基础设施需求（如额外的化石燃料发电）实现节约。这个小型企业技术转移（STTR）第一阶段项目将实现分散、随机和自下而上的协调，将二象限和四象限的电力电子逆变器连接到太阳能光伏和电池存储系统上。与竞争的、集中的、自上而下的调度方法相比，所提出的技术使逆变器能够根据一个基于实时本地测量和与聚合器通信的概率状态转换的自动机来调节有功和无功输出。通过结合本地测量，该方法确保终端用户的能源需求得到满足，同时为负荷聚合器或电力公司提供灵活性。这种灵活性将使配电公司能够管理馈线功率流、损耗和电压限制。这种协调的概率性质防止了有害的同步效应（如振荡），同时通过类似于在Internet上路由数据包的匿名交互来维护终端消费者的隐私。项目完成后，将展示一种商业上可行的、人性化的软件即服务（SaaS）技术，该技术将实现这种分散的方法，以与现代电网运行兼容的方式协调分布式逆变器。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is the development and validation of technologies that enable electric energy systems to operate reliably and affordably with very large amounts of renewable energy. Clean, reliable and affordable electricity is vital to modern society. However the variability of wind and solar generation can lead to catastrophic grid reliability problems if real-time demand does not match the supply. This project will develop and demonstrate a system to manage distributed (e.g., rooftop) solar photovoltaic systems operating with and without local electrical energy storage (i.e., batteries) in a way that extracts the most value for the customer, while simultaneously improving the reliability of the electricity infrastructure. The project will leverage algorithms inspired by those used by millions of devices to send data over the Internet. Like Internet data, energy will be delivered in discrete energy packets. These packets are coordinated independently, anonymously, and fairly to simultaneously solve real-world grid problems and provide value to end-users. The result of this project will be an integrated software-as-a-service and hardware solution in which customers gain incentives for participating and electricity industry members realize savings by reducing infrastructure needs, such as additional fossil fuel generation.This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will enable the decentralized, randomized, and bottom-up coordination of two- and four-quadrant power-electronic inverters attached to solar photovoltaic and electric battery storage systems. In contrast to competing, centralized, top-down scheduling approaches, the proposed technology enables inverters to regulate both active and reactive power output according to an automaton that undergoes probabilistic state-transitions based on both real-time local measurements and communication with an aggregator. By incorporating local measurements, the method ensures that the energy needs of the end-use consumer are met while providing flexibility to a load aggregator or electric utility. This flexibility will enable distribution utilities to manage feeder power flows, losses, and voltage constraints. The probabilistic nature of the coordination prevents harmful synchronization effects, such as oscillations, while maintaining privacy of end-consumers through anonymous interactions akin to how data packets are routed on the Internet. Upon completion of the project, a commercially viable, human-friendly software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology will be demonstrated that implements this decentralized approach to coordinate distributed inverters in a manner that is compatible with modern grid operations.