Born in a Flood: The Epic Story of the Controllable Grid Interface

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NREL Researchers Rejoice 10 Years of Replicating Grid Occasions To Strengthen Renewable Power Applied sciences

In September 2013, a crew of Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory (NREL) researchers, led by Vahan Gevorgian and Robb Wallen, confronted a looming deadline. Not solely did the brand-new 5-megawatt (MW) dynamometer have to be up and working, linked to a 2.75-MW wind turbine nacelle as a trial expertise element, however the energy generated by the nacelle additionally needed to be despatched via the never-before-tried Controllable Grid Interface (CGI) and again to the grid.

As if that was not sufficient strain, a document flood hit the Boulder, Colorado, space close to what’s now often called NREL’s Flatirons Campus, the place the crew’s work was being performed.

“It was epic. The deadline was the final day of our fiscal 12 months of 2013, and it coincided with a 100-year flood,” Gevorgian mentioned. “We labored exhausting, spending many nights on campus as a result of a few of us couldn’t even go dwelling due to the flooding. We survived on pizzas.”

Complicating issues additional was the truth that Przemyslaw Koralewicz, who, in 2013, was working alongside the NREL crew as a programs engineer for ABB—an NREL associate that constructed the CGI’s energy converter—was caught in a resort in Louisville, Colorado, which itself was flooded. Because of this, he participated within the race to deadline remotely by video chat on Vahan’s pc pill.

“It was a loopy time,” recalled Wallen, who had not been satisfied the CGI was going to work. “However we had the entire loop accomplished at 9 p.m. on the final day, made all of the milestones, and the CGI labored nice!”

NREL’s 7-MW CGI has been working constantly within the decade because it grew to become operational. Wallen estimates that some 50 tasks have used the CGI. Remoted from the utility grid, the custom-made, controllable analysis grid helps producers and system operators perceive how renewable vitality programs, which may embody wind generators and photo voltaic panels in addition to vitality storage inverters, react to grid disturbances similar to energy surges or outages earlier than they’re deployed.

“The primary most important good thing about the CGI is that it might cowl each doable situation that something—a small distribution circuit, a microgrid, an island vitality system, or a bulk grid—may expertise below any grid situation,” Gevorgian mentioned.

In accordance with Gevorgian, the CGI has performed a giant function in making the grid extra dependable. Researchers who got here to NREL when the CGI was already in operation introduced new concepts for added capabilities. Researcher Shahil Shah, who joined NREL in 2018, helped develop new strategies for utilizing the CGI to guage grid stability impacts by inverter-based sources like photo voltaic arrays and wind generators.

“The second most important profit is that the CGI {couples} managed grid circumstances with actual useful resource variability in an end-to-end system,” Gevorgian continued. “After we check an article, we check the entire thing. It’s a full wind turbine linked to cables and transformers to the managed grid with all of the sensors.”

And people connections are all being made in actual time on the Flatirons Campus. “Every thing is actual. Little or no, if something, is simulated,” Gevorgian mentioned.

That saves time and sources whereas minimizing integration points, enhancing reliability, and advancing the event and deployment of renewable vitality applied sciences.

“Utilizing the CGI, our companions can discover points inside a really reasonable atmosphere after which depart NREL with a significantly better, way more compliant and dependable product,” Wallen mentioned. “We’re actually benefiting renewables by ensuring issues do what they’re purported to do.”

Years within the Making

The crew behind the CGI included Gevorgian, Wallen, Koralewicz, and plenty of others.

“I name Vahan the daddy of the CGI,” mentioned Koralewicz, who joined NREL as a researcher in 2016 to handle CGI experiments and has since been creating extra subtle CGI functionalities. “He had the thought and bought the funding. Robb applied the CGI. And I commissioned it from the ABB aspect.”

Gevorgian spreads the credit score extra generously.

“That child has many fathers,” he mentioned. “The CGI wouldn’t have occurred with out quite a few people, some who’re now not with NREL. Everybody—from NREL administration to the U.S. Division of Power—was absolutely supportive.”

Conceived in 2010–2011, the CGI concept was floated throughout a workshop with giant wind vitality distributors to find out what they wished to see in such a analysis equipment and what would supply essentially the most profit to the U.S. wind vitality trade.

“That helped us specify the traits of the gadget, however throughout that work, we additionally realized, ‘Why restrict ourselves to wind? What we’re constructing may gain advantage any side of renewable era or distributed era at multimegawatt scale,’” Gevorgian mentioned. “So, the crew expanded the scope, and that was the start of the CGI.”

After receiving funding from the American Restoration and Reinvestment Act and different sources, NREL engaged with ABB, who constructed the CGI primarily based on NREL’s specs.

“Przemyslaw, who was at ABB, wrote this ‘different mind’ on high of an industrial drive that had been used for giant ship propulsion and mining purposes,” Wallen mentioned. “It was a very good transfer as a result of we had been capable of leverage the entire security and protections of this drive system. Turning it into the CGI’s energy provide was fairly novel.”

Wallen mentioned that when the potential for different purposes—similar to bringing in a battery storage system to attach the CGI to all the Flatirons Campus—grew to become clear, that shaped the premise for NREL’s Superior Analysis on Built-in Power Methods (ARIES) analysis platform.

“We are able to run a mannequin of an island energy grid on a real-time digital simulator, have that work together with the CGI, after which have the grid simulator work together with real-life belongings on our web site,” Wallen mentioned. “So, the CGI allowed NREL to develop our capabilities and appeal to loads of trade companions and loads of analysis.”

Companions Line Up

Along with analysis funded by U.S. Division of Power workplaces—similar to these specializing in wind vitality, water energy, photo voltaic vitality, hydrogen and gasoline cell applied sciences, and grid modernization—the CGI helped many trade companions validate their renewable vitality applied sciences. Amongst these had been Common Electrical, SMA Power Methods, AES Company, and Caterpillar Inc.

For international vitality firm AES, the CGI’s capabilities have helped scale back the danger of implementing new applied sciences on two of its tasks on the Hawaiian island of Kauai: the Lāwai Photo voltaic and Power Storage challenge and U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Vary Facility microgrid.

“If we didn’t have the CGI, we wouldn’t be capable of study as rapidly. The CGI permits us to run via many doable grid occasions and ensure that we perceive how our vegetation behave in a method that can assist the grid and meet our prospects’ wants,” mentioned Kelsey Horowitz, an AES senior supervisor in innovation engineering. “There’s simply no method that we’d be capable of do {hardware} testing of all these completely different grid circumstances with out utilizing the CGI.”

One Grid Interface Deserves One other

The CGI’s recognition amongst NREL, the U.S. Division of Power, and trade companions has created a analysis bottleneck. That is among the the explanation why NREL determined to construct a second CGI—CGI2, a 20-MW unit that can complement the primary CGI and allow NREL to assist extra experiments.

Maintaining with the tempo of renewable vitality expertise is one more reason.

“In 2013, the CGI supplied fundamental performance. It was a prototype. Since then, we’ve upgraded the CGI many occasions with additional options,” Koralewicz mentioned. “CGI2 is the results of this evolution. It contains loads of classes discovered and has extra functionalities that we developed over the previous 10 years.”

CGI2, which has been in growth since 2018, is sort of prepared for its analysis debut.

“Proper now, NREL is bringing stakeholders collectively and giving them an opportunity to kick the tires,” Wallen mentioned. “Then, we’ll deal with any issues and declare CGI2 analysis prepared.”

Keep tuned for information concerning the CGI2, and study extra concerning the CGI and NREL’s wind vitality analysis services. And be sure you subscribe to NREL’s wind vitality publication for extra information like this.

Initially revealed on NREL’s web site.