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Transactive
NEW!
GRID MONITOR TOOLS
Learn more about these grid monitoring tools:
GFA LAB TOUR
Take a virtual tour of PNNL's Grid Friendly Appliance Laboratory
(The Macromedia Shockwave and Apple Quicktime plug-ins are required for this tour. Please update to the latest versions of each; or if you prefer, you may request a CD-ROM version of the tour.)Grid Friendly Controller Flier
Grid-Friendly Controller Helps Balance Energy Supply and Demand
(PDF 232Kb)
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GridWiseTM markets and controls merge to form a transactive network.
Transactive control technologies involve the merging of markets and controls—allowing for transaction-based collaboration on complex networks. At PNNL, we believe that widespread implementation of transactive technologies within the electric energy system will be fundamental to enabling GridWiseTM transformation.
PNNL experts in system dynamics, information technology and the electric power grid are preparing the technological foundations for transactive technologies. Current work on transactive technologies includes research, analysis and demonstrations surrounding the Grid Friendly Appliances™ and analysis and monitoring of grid behavior. The Grid Friendly Appliance screen saver developed at PNNL is now available for real-time visualization of grid behavior.
Take a virtual tour of
PNNL's Grid Friendly Appliance Laboratory.
(The Macromedia Shockwave and Apple Quicktime plug-ins are required for this tour. Please update to the latest versions of each; or if you prefer, you may request a CD-ROM version of the tour.)
The Grid Friendly Appliance controller developed at PNNL senses grid conditions by monitoring the frequency of the system and provides automatic demand response in times of disruption. Within each of three vast interconnected areas of the North American power grid (East, West and Texas), a disturbance of the 60-Hz frequency is a universal indicator of serious imbalance between supply and demand that, if unarrested, leads to a blackout. This simple computer chip can be installed in household appliances and turn them off for a few minutes or even a few seconds to allow the grid to stabilize. The controllers can be programmed to autonomously react in fractions of a second when a disturbance is detected, whereas power plants take minutes to come up to speed. They can even be programmed to delay restart instead of all coming on at once after a power outage to ease power restoration.
By integrating the controllers with appliances at the factory, costs can be reduced to a few dollars per appliance and customers will not even notice the short interruption (by turning the compressor off, but leaving the light on in a refrigerator, for example). In the process, customers become an integral part of power grid operations and could even be rewarded for their participation in helping prevent a widespread outage. So, without the need for any formal communications capability, appliances are transformed from being part of the problem to part of the solution, acting as assets that form a much quicker and better safety net under the power grid and freeing up power plants from standby duty to increase competition, lower prices and meet future load growth. Moreover, because they act autonomously, no communication system is required beyond the power grid itself. But, when one becomes available, the "smarts" are already on board the appliances to do much more sophisticated negotiation and control, such as reducing peak loads. Thus, this simple, cost effective technology becomes an island of new technology from which ever more sophisticated aspects of GridWise can grow.
The Grid Friendly Appliance controller has been developed and tested at PNNL. It is ready for licensing and installation in the next generation of appliances. PNNL is currently working with appliance manufacturers and utilities to use Grid Friendly Appliances in a variety of test-bed and demonstration projects.
Project Lead: Don Hammerstrom
PNNL has built the Grid Friendly Appliance (GFA) Laboratory to study integration of the controller chips in a variety of appliances, including dryers, refrigerators, water heaters, air conditioners and space heaters and to demonstrate and test their response to power fluctuations. The lab is capable of reproducing actual frequency signatures from blackouts such as the August 14, 2003 event in the Northeast to test and refine the response of the controllers. It also is used to test methods of integrating the controller with standard appliance controls to ensure it is unobtrusive for the consumer and does not harm the appliance.
A variety of studies combining the GFA Laboratory, PNNL simulation systems and modeling capabilities are underway. These studies aim to characterize the use of GFAs and demonstrate the benefits of using them to maintain grid stability and return the grid to stable conditions more readily in the event of excessive frequency deviations.
Project Lead: Don Hammerstrom
PNNL is supporting a number of demonstration and test-bed projects surrounding GridWise technologies. The Non-Wires Solution projects provide examples of demonstrations test-bed projects exploring load reduction and distributed generation in collaboration with the Bonneville Power Administration.
Project Lead: Rob Pratt