With the growth of distributed energy resources (DERs), the industry needs one cohesive way to integrate and interact with the electric grid. On August 2, 2018, a consortium of national labs and nonprofit organizations announced the Plug & Play DER Challenge Call for Concepts to develop interoperability solutions to lower integration costs, increase system performance, and enhance capabilities.
To advance the integration of smart technology in the electric power sector, grid modernization stakeholders must first agree on a common vision of the concepts, structures, and characteristics for interoperability. To that end, the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium issued its Interoperability Strategic Vision whitepaper in March 2018.
In February 2018, Hawaiian Electric became the first U.S. utility to require system-wide activation of frequency-watt control, following the recommendations of a July 2017 GMLC Technical Report published by the project team, and the staff of the California Public Utilities Commission has recommended that California take a similar step. The newly revised national standard for DER integration, IEEE Standard 1547-2018, allows for fast (sub-second) DER frequency support based on the recommendations of the project team.
