Schneider Electric, the global leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, announced Grid to Prosumer, an end-to-end approach to DER management to maximize the connection and value of renewable energy, energy storage and electric vehicles.
Grid modernization is increasingly about managing supply and demand at the grid edge, spanning both sides of the customer meter. It requires new ways to engage, plan and design, optimize and maintain, analyze and automate, all with a stepwise, coordinated approach. Schneider Electric’s new Grid to Prosumer approach helps manage the lifecycle of DER management with simple to complex workflows and use cases that optimize DER across energy market needs, grid constraint requirements and prosumer priorities.
Schneider Electric has also expanded its EcoStruxure Grid portfolio for Grids of the Future with strategic partners AutoGrid for flexibility services and Virtual Power Plants, and Uplight for prosumer engagement and demand-side management. With this continued focus toward solving the challenges the industry faces, the Grid to Prosumer approach offers an end-to-end solution to DER management that coordinates across business functions with a comprehensive view of grid data management that is value-based and use-case driven.
“Schneider Electric recognizes that as the complexity of grid management rises, the more crucial it becomes to address utility challenges holistically,” said Scott Koehler, Vice President, Global Strategy for Digital Grids at Schneider Electric. “Backed by a comprehensive portfolio of solutions driving our vision for Grids of the Future, the Grid to Prosumer approach addresses the needs of supply and demand to serve utilities and prosumers with more flexible and scalable options for a more reliable, efficient, sustainable and flexible grid.”
End-to-end Integrated DER Management Approach
- Modeling – Types, sizes, locations, and availability of DER are shared so that all necessary business functions, such as customer service, asset management, and planning and operations, have the latest view. This includes adding and removing DER, updating availability status, reconciling network reconfiguration, etc.
- Situational Awareness – Visibility can now include DER status and event schedule for demand management activities. For example, when a demand curtailment event is scheduled, details such as timing, duration, and scale of the event is integrated into planning and operations systems.
- Planning – Increases efficiency of processing new customer connection requests and enables the assessment of available hosting capacity for all grid locations. Assess all options to increase capacity including non-wire alternatives.
- Realtime & Lookahead Constraint Management – Detects constraints in real-time, predicts future constraints and specifies mitigation parameters and schedule for grid optimization: group of DER for affected area, load/production increase/decrease, and timeframe. Flexibility services then dispatches assets, directly or through aggregators, via prioritization and optimization parameters to meet the request.
- Dynamic Operating Limits – Provides upper and lower bounds on the import or export of power for each DER or group of DER. This more dynamic approach integrated with flexibility services adjusts upper & lower limits in short, precise time intervals.
- Flexibility Markets – Requests for DER optimization are integrated with flexibility markets to facilitate a bid process with prosumers. The result is a list of available resources to meet that request. When the scheduled time arrives, DER are dispatched according to the awarded bid conditions.
EcoStruxure Grid integrated solutions for Grids of the Future directly supporting the Grid to Prosumer approach include EcoStruxure™ DERMS for grid optimization, AutoGrid Flex for flexibility services and Virtual Power Plants, Uplight Orchestrated Energy and Energy Profiler Online for prosumer engagement and demand-side management, and EcoStruxure Microgrid Advisor for microgrid management.
Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Grid solution portfolio for Grids of the Future demonstrates the company’s commitment to a more digital and electric world, and together with the Grid to Prosumer approach supports the growth of distributed energy resources, microgrids, energy communities, and other flexible resources across digitally planned, designed and operated lifecycles.
