Doosan GridTech delivers cleantech grid stability for Australia’s third-largest economy.
Engineering Project Manager, Will Van Cleve, gives an in-depth interview on what the 8minute collaboration has set out to prove, how ESS owners can leverage solar forecasting for even greater returns and reveals some learnings along the way.
Doosan GridTech’s vision is to be the global leader in delivering technology solutions for the digital, distributed electric grid.
Narrator: Electricity is the lifeline of our modern world. It supports our economies, connects our communities, and propels technological innovation. As electricity generation and usage advance, so must the grid system that delivers it. At Doosan GridTech we’re breaking new ground with technology solutions for the emerging digital distributed grid. For over 100 years the electrical grid operated essentially the same way. Electricity flowed in one direction, from central power generating stations directly to the end customer. In the past decade wind and solar power have become significant energy sources, both depend on intermittent resources, creating inconsistent flows of electricity, solar power presents additional challenges as customers throughout the system become power generators. This is not how the system was designed and as a result electric utilities are challenged to keep the system in balance.”
Interview 1: Daniel Schwartz, Ph. D “ Utilities have a tough challenge that they’re facing. Because society is expecting more renewables like solar and wind on the grid. They’re current grid needs new strategies, like smart grid, grid integration, battery storage, all coming together at once.”
Narrator: Energy Storage provides an ideal solution for electric utilities but storage alone cannot solve the complex pressures on the system. Doosan GridTech’s grid management platform delivers the software intelligence needed to automatically integrate unprecedented levels of distributed energy resources. Our solutions dynamically control energy, allowing utilities to embrace distributed resources while maintaining a reliable high quality electricity system for their customers.
The Doosan Group was founded in South Korea in 1896 and has been delivering power generation solutions to customers worldwide for over 40 years. In 2016 Doosan acquired 1Energy Systems a recognized leader in utility software controls. The two groups formed Doosan GridTech with the goal of becoming the leader in technology based solutions for the rapidly evolving electric grid. Our intelligent controller software sits on location with each energy storage system and automatically reacts to changes on the local circuit. Complementing that is our distributed energy resource management system, DERO, which runs in a utility control center and dynamically optimizes resources throughout the entire system. Both products are built on open standards based software interfaces, to ensure wide interoperability with other systems. Complementing our software platform is a full range of engineering services: we offer upfront modeling and design, system integration, and maintenance and support after commissioning, and all of our work is fully backed by the Doosan Group. This software and services solution positions utilities to accommodate large amounts of wind and solar generation while maintaining a reliable, high quality electrical system. Snohomish Public Utility District, located in Everett, Washington, is the 12th largest public power utility in the United States with over 300,000 customers.
Interview 2: Jason Zyskowski: “We’re here at Hardeson Substation where we have installed two megawatts of lithium ion batteries, we’re working on a second installation in North Everett that’ll be another 2 megawatts, 8 megawatt hours of vanadium redox flow batteries. Both these systems are controlled by the Doosan GridTech Intelligent Controller™ and then can be remotely controlled by the Doosan GridTech DERO™ product.”
Interview 3: Chris Heimgartner “We have a fleet of storage that’s around our system that can serve both local and global network needs. It self optimizes without a human intervening. “
Narrator: Moving forward Doosan GridTech software solutions will control more than just energy storage systems. Our platform unlocks the benefits of a wide variety of resources: from energy storage, to solar arrays, to intelligent buildings, and electric vehicles. The electricity system is facing significant change and Doosan GridTech is leading the way with innovative solutions for the emerging digital distributed grid.
Join Snohomish PUD on a tour of the first MESA-based energy storage system (2:31).
Hello I am Jason Zyskowski at the Snohomish County PUD I manage the substation engineering department here at the district and I’ve also acted as the project manager on the districts first energy storage project MESA 1.
Alright we are now inside Hardeson substation looking at the battery container. You can see the battery modules behind me, these battery modules were provided by Mitsubishi GS Yuasa. There’s a total of 240 battery modules in the whole container, twelve different strings containing twenty modules in each string. The voltage ranges on each string between 700 volts DC when it’s fully discharged to 1000 volts when it’s fully charged.
We’re now looking at a different section of the battery container, you can see behind me the disconnects for each string. These are the DC disconnects that allow each string to be electrically isolated and then also back on the back wall you can see the battery management system for each string, once again that’s looking at the cell voltages, temperatures and current. We also have arch flash detectors throughout the container so that if there is some sort of electrical arch or flash in there those will detect that and then immediately trip all the breakers associated with the system and de-energize it.
We are now standing in front of the power conversion system. This was provided by Parker-Hannifin and this system converts the DC battery power to AC, obviously the electric system is AC and so there has to be some way to convert the power from DC to AC when the batteries are discharging and then AC to DC when the batteries are charging.
We are now standing in front of the control cabinet which houses the 1Energy control system. You can see right here to my right, the Main Computer and the HMI. The main computer has all of the algorithms on it that are used to implement the Use cases (??) the Use cases include renewables, integration, peak shifting, power factor correction and so on. This control system is built in compliance with the MESA standard and also received funding from the state of Washington through the clean energy fund for all of this work. The district looks forward to more projects with the state, namely MESA 2, and continuing to explore the viability of the MESA standards through the clean energy fund.
Engineering for scale looks to bring the traditional advantages of economies of scale to the energy storage system (ESS) market, through use of standardization and open standards.
Until recently, most people viewed an energy storage system as having two components:
• a battery, and
• a power conversion system to convert the battery’s DC output to AC for the grid — the battery and PCS each having its own embedded software to control that component.
Here at Doosan GridTech – formerly 1Energy Systems – we believe a third component is essential to an energy storage system — intelligent control software. Software allows the creation of standard interfaces. Standard interfaces enable communication between components built by different companies. Our background in the IT industry has shown us how important the creation of open standards is to unlocking innovation and expanding customer choice.
So, one of our first efforts has been to work with utilities and other industry players to create a set of open standards called MESA — Modular Energy Storage Architecture. Within an ESS, MESA utilizes:
• an interface for the Batteries and
• an interface for the PCS. Both of these are based on the Modbus protocol and developed in conjunction with the SunSpec Alliance.
By using MESA standards, control software can communicate with batteries and PCS’s from different vendors, intelligently switching and applying power control algorithms to derive maximum value from all of the components.
MESA also defines an interface between the ESS and a utility’s control and scheduling systems such as SCADA. This interface is built on the DNP3 protocol.
And MESA makes an ESS scalable. A utility could install a second ESS at the same location. Let’s say this one is an integrated Battery Plus PCS from a different vendor. This entire installation can be managed by a single instance of control software. When battery vendors support the MESA standard, the work to integrate additional equipment like this is minimal.
Let’s extend this system once more to include an ESS at a second location on the grid, installing a flow battery that works with a PCS from yet another vendor. Insisting on MESA-compatible components makes it easy for software to control this third ESS at a second location.
Having a common control platform across all components allows a coordinated set of power algorithms to be deployed across the entire fleet, as well as enabling secure, remote management via SCADA.
Our customers have told us that for energy storage to become valuable to their operations, it must be intelligently integrated and managed.
Open standards enables these installations to be more plug-and-play. Intelligent software makes them work together.
