OVERLAND PARK, Kan. and REDWOOD CITY, Calif., March 30, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- POWERGRID International has selected CPS Energy’s Demand Response Management System (DRMS) as its 2017 Demand Response/Energy Efficiency Project of the Year. The project will unify demand response (DR) and distributed energy resource (DER) programs totaling 165 megawatts (MW) in capacity on a single application.
Black & Veatch is leading the integration with CPS Energy’s current systems. The project uses AutoGrid Flex™, AutoGrid’s flagship application designed to manage and optimize flexible capacity from DERs deployed at the grid edge. The first phase of the project has resulted in an average load shed of 60 MW of dispatched DER capacity per event.
“Black & Veatch and AutoGrid were able to roll out the first phase in just 10 weeks, which is unprecedented for a project of this magnitude,” said Wayne Callender, Zero Emissions Resource Manager, CPS Energy. “We can better manage our assets, forecast and schedule events, engage with customers and support additional distributed energy resource deployment. Our DR program participants benefit with direct cost-savings.”
The deployment of a unified flexibility management system will help CPS Energy achieve its Save for Tomorrow Energy Plan (STEP) goals, which include saving 771 MW by the year 2020 in order to avoid the building of an additional power plant.
“The first phase of the project was completed just before the summer, when energy demand and rates spike,” said Tim Catlett, Power Industry Managing Director, Black & Veatch Management Consulting, LLC. “The AutoGrid Flex integration is already proving to be a valuable solution for CPS Energy’s energy management and sustainability needs.”
AutoGrid Flex aggregates DERs and business rules across a portfolio of programs and multiple hardware vendor systems, allowing CPS Energy operators to coordinate and optimize different programs that traditionally were running in silos, and giving them the ability to quickly add new resources and programs.
CPS Energy operators are able to obtain a unified view of all their programs, including information on available energy dispatch capacity, and can schedule events based on total system load, weather and other system conditions. The intuitive user interface allows system operators to set up programs, manage enrollments, accurately monitor DER activity in real-time, forecast available DERs and easily dispatch - significantly streamlining the workflow necessary to manage multiple programs across thousands of participants and assets. In addition to the cost and environmental benefits, the project helps CPS Energy better engage with its customers while delivering a substantial reduction in customers’ energy costs.
“We are thrilled by the successful deployment of AutoGrid Flex at one of the nation’s most progressive utilities,” said Dr. Amit Narayan, CEO of AutoGrid. “We look forward to continuing to support CPS Energy as they seek to realize their ambitious STEP energy conservation goals while providing safe, reliable, cost-effective and sustainable energy to their customers.”
Moving forward, CPS Energy will use AutoGrid Flex to further extend the reach and effectiveness of its DER programs. Using the AutoGrid Engage™ customer engagement application suite, CPS Energy plans to roll out easy-to-use customer portals for enrollment and information sharing, including consumption and event response information, and multi-channel messaging via email, text and voice, increasing customer program participation, engagement and satisfaction.
In addition, CPS Energy plans to use AutoGrid’s ability to connect to and manage DERs to communicate in real time with customer-sited solar power systems, EV chargers and energy storage systems, allowing them to aggregate these DERs into virtual resources that can be dispatched to address grid reliability concerns. Subsequent phases of the project also include further system integration and synchronization with other distribution management and energy management systems deployed at CPS Energy.
Editor’s Notes:
- Demand response management systems were the second most important investment to enable greater distributed energy resource deployment, according to utility respondents in Black & Veatch’s 2017 Strategic Directions: Smart City/Smart Utility Report.
About Black & Veatch
Black & Veatch is an employee-owned, global leader in building critical human infrastructure in Energy, Water, Telecommunications and Government Services. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people in over 100 countries through consulting, engineering, construction, operations and program management. Our revenues in 2016 were US$3.2 billion. Follow us on www.bv.com and in social media.
About AutoGrid
AutoGrid builds software applications that enable a smarter Energy Internet. The company’s suite of Energy Internet applications allows utilities, electricity retailers, renewable energy project developers and energy service providers to deliver cheap, clean and reliable energy by managing networked distributed energy resources (DERs) in real time and at scale. AutoGrid Flex has more than 2,000 megawatts of DERs under contract with more than 25 global energy companies around the world. The world’s leading energy companies including E.ON, BPA, FPL, Eneco, CPS Energy, NextEra Energy, Xcel Energy and CLEAResult, rely on AutoGrid applications to monitor, predict, optimize and control the operations of millions of connected energy resources.