The Challenges and Rewards of Integrating Distributed Energy Resources into the Grid

It’s an exciting time but also a challenging one in the utility industry, according to Jason Petermeier, chief operating officer of ELM MicroGrid and ELM Solar, a distributed energy resource and microgrid provider. Petermeier recently sat down with Rod Walton, managing editor of Microgrid Knowledge, to discuss how distributed energy resources (DER) are impacting the grid.

“The industry as a whole is relatively new here in the last 10 years. So figuring out how to navigate these waters is definitely a challenge that everybody's working toward solving,” Petermeier said.

The rise in the number of electric vehicles on the road and the ever-increasing demand for more electricity from a growing population is stressing the grid, Petermeier explained.

“We've got to figure out ways to make that grid more stable and reliable for us going into the future,” he told Walton.

Petermeier believes that power sources like solar and wind will be key to stabilizing the grid in the future.

But integrating renewables into the grid is not without its challenges.

“Going green is great for everyone, but the utility has to be able to figure out how and when to use that power” in a way that avoids grid destabilizing voltage and frequency fluctuations, Petermeier explained.

Energy storage systems that allow utilities to capture that renewable power when it's available and discharge it when it's needed, ultimately smoothing out the power and avoiding rolling brownouts or blackouts during times of peak demand, will be essential to not only making the grid more sustainable but also more stable, he added.

Creating a new ecosystem of DERs

Petermeier and Walton also discussed the challenges facing utilities as they work to create a larger ecosystem made up of multiple DERs that must all communicate with each other and the utility.

“In the industry they call that the DERMS system, or distributed energy resource management system,” Petermeier explained. “Building out that infrastructure, that communication network, is really going to be key to making all this work harmoniously together going into the future,” he added. 

Cybersecurity around these systems will also be crucial, Petermeier said.

“Not only do you have to be able to communicate [with] and control all these distributed energy systems, but you’ve got to protect” them as well, he said. 

A rewarding time

Petermeier also discussed some of the most rewarding projects that ELM MicroGrid and ELM Solar have worked on in the past several years, many of which involve electrifying island villages that have traditionally had limited power provided only by diesel generators­.

“We're able to work with those islands or villages to incorporate our energy storage system along with solar power to basically reduce their use of the generators, [cutting] the runtime down by 90% or 95%,” Petermeier explained. 

Petermeier also mentioned cases where ELM deployed systems in Haitian villages that have never had power. “Just being able to provide power to some of these more remote villages and give them more comfort … has been both fun and rewarding,” he said.