Southern California Edison launches transactive energy pilot using customer-sited DER –

This week, Opus One Solutions,
provider of DERMS software, announced an agreement to deploy its GridOS
Transactive Energy Management System (TEMS) for a demonstration at Southern
California Edison (SCE). 

Opus One said this is the first
transactive energy software deployment of its kind in the state of California.

SCE will use GridOS TEMS to
manage distributed energy resources (DER) in its Camden substation area.
Through price signals, SCE will be able to communicate with and optimize the
dispatch of those resources. This will allow SCE to explore cost-effective services
for the grid through customer owned DER, and potential new revenue streams for
its customers.

Hari Suthan, Chief Strategic Growth and Policy Officer at Opus One said in an email that the project will be happening in two phases. In the first phase, SCE will use the GridOS software to simulate scenarios in a lab environment to test out different pricing mechanisms for DER dispatch. SCE will then conduct a demonstration with real DER assets owned by customers in the Camden substation area. Customers will be compensated for their participation.

“SCE is really looking to evaluate dynamic pricing programs for their ability to minimize grid losses, maximize PV output, and minimize operational costs. This would support the valuation of DER services to the utility that could result in additional revenue streams for the customers in the future,” said Suthan.

The project is part of SCE’s
Electric Access System Enhancement (EASE) project, which is supported by the
Department of Energy (DOE) Enabling
Extreme Real-time Grid Integration of Solar Energy (ENERGISE) program.

The ENERGISE program is led by
the DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, which aims to improve the
affordability, reliability, and value of solar technologies on the grid.

Learnings from this project
could inform grid operations to manage DER at scale and help SCE toward its
vision of cleaning the electricity grid and reaching carbon neutrality, said
Opus One.

“Utilities need a way to
effectively accommodate more clean, distributed energy on their grids as the
push for decarbonization of the industry accelerates,” said Mark Hormann, Vice
President, US Sales at Opus One Solutions in a press release. “A market-based
approach, which brings time-varying prices to resources based on their
location, helps achieve these goals while opening up new revenue streams for
utilities and their customers.”