Portland General Electric unveiled its new Smart Power Center at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, May 31. The new 8,000-square-foot facility is part of a region-wide umbrella project – the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project  – that’s testing and validating smart technologies and capabilities.  A 5-megawatt battery system is the star of the new center and the largest application of energy storage in the Battelle-led demo project, which is the largest regional smart grid project in the country.

 

“The Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project is a successful public-private partnership involving 17 organizations across five Northwest states," said Patricia Hoffman, assistant secretary for DOE's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, which oversees regional smart grid demonstration projects. "It is a highly innovative project demonstrating transactive energy management, which is a promising, cost-effective way to integrate variable renewable energy, energy storage and demand response at scale. The celebration of the Salem Smart Power Center makes it clear that Oregon is helping to lead the way on energy storage commercialization and grid modernization.”

 

PGE, an investor-owned utility that serves more than 821,000 customers in northwest Oregon, is one of 11 electric utilities from five Northwest states that are participating in the five-year, $178 million regional smart grid project that launched in 2010. About half of PGE’s $23 million involvement in the project was paid for with DOE funds, including the $10 million Smart Power Center.

 

PGE’s new center will test how smart assets can work together at the regional level to optimize the Northwest's abundance of renewable resources and provide needed balancing services that can enhance the reliability of the regional grid. The 5 MW lithium-ion battery system is a component of the microgrid facility which has been designed as a highly reliable, localized power zone that can provide reserve power to about 500 local customers if there’s a electricity disruption or power outage. The battery and microgrid are examples of the innovative technologies and methods being tested through the demonstration project. Click here or watch the video to learn more about PGE’s Salem Smart Power Center.

 

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and a champion of smart grid and energy storage initiatives, joined Assistant Secretary Hoffman as a speaker at the grand opening.

“Increasing renewables, reliability and storage moves our country toward a low-carbon, more sustainable energy future,” Sen. Wyden said. “This Smart Power Center and the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project show that when it comes to energy innovation, Oregon takes a back seat to no one.”

The energy storage system will respond to regional grid conditions with the help of a key aspect of the demonstration project called transactive control. Transactive control is based on technology from DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, managed by Battelle. The technology helps power producers and users decide when and where the area's power will be consumed by automatically responding to signals representing future power costs and planned energy consumption. The cost signals originate at Battelle's Electricity Infrastructure Operations Center in Richland, Wash. They are updated every five minutes and sent to participating utilities, including PGE.

 

The automated signals allow project participants to make local decisions on how their piece of the smart grid project can support local and regional grid needs. The Salem battery will use the signal to coordinate its charge and discharge cycles with the power grid's supply and demand.

 

“Two-way information exchange in the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project allows grid operators to make the existing electric grid more efficient, while also exploring how using other technologies such as PGE's energy storage system, smart appliances and wind power can bolster the reliability of our system,” said Carl Imhoff, who manages Battelle's Electricity Infrastructure Market Sector in Richland.

 

The Bonneville Power Administrationis a major partner in the project and is leading the development of a regional business case for investing in smart grid infrastructure and technologies.

 

“New, smarter technologies can help us make the most of the region's renewable resources, improve how we operate the power system and bolster its resilience,” said Elliot Mainzer, BPA's deputy administrator. “We're looking closely at the benefits and economics so we can tell Northwest electric utilities and ratepayers which 'smart' investments will provide long-term value.”

 

BPA is working to support utilities in the project as they unite to address both regional and utility requirements. Communication and collaboration between utilities is key to making this all work, especially considering that five states are involved, with everything from large investor-owned companies to smaller publicly-owned entities. The utilities have varying goals, but are working together to enhance the economics, reliability and integration of renewables for the power system. BPA has taken a lead role in assuring that the utility perspective as well as the regional perspective is addressed to meet the needs of electricity consumers throughout the Northwest. BPA’s Technology Innovation Office is contributing $10 million to the five-year project, which is matched with an additional $10 million from DOE.

 

 

The Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project is the largest regional smart grid project in the country, with 60,000 metered customers over five Northwest states. It was co-funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through DOE, as well as the project’s utility and vendor partners. Battelle, the world's largest independent research and development organization, is leading the project, which includes BPA and 11 Northwest-based utilities: Avista Utilities (Spokane, Wash.), Benton PUD (Kennewick, Wash.), City of Ellensburg (Ellensburg, Wash.), Flathead Electric Cooperative (Kalispell, Mont.), Idaho Falls Power (Idaho Falls, Idaho), Lower Valley Energy (Afton, Wyo.), Milton-Freewater City Light & Power (Milton-Freewater, Ore.), NorthWestern Energy (Butte, Mont.), Peninsula Light Company (Gig Harbor, Wash.), Portland General Electric (Portland, Ore.) and the University of Washington/Seattle City Light (Seattle, Wash.).  The project also involves a diverse team of technology providers, including Alstom Grid, IBM Netezza, 3TIER Inc. and Quality Logic Inc. Washington State University and Central Washington University are also directly involved.