Call it power-generation telepresence. "It's like you're physically next to" a generator's control panel, "able to read meters, start a machine, stop it, or change its set points," says Chris Campbell, CEO of Connected Energy Corp. of Rochester, NY, which is helping to develop the technology. "You're doing anything you like—just as if you're standing in front of the machine," he says, when in actuality "you're in a distant location somewhere, doing this securely, in real time, through the Net."

Web technology now promises to revolutionize electrical system management at every level and already scores of cutting-edge applications are demonstrating how it's done. When this capability hits full stride in the very near future, it will spur dramatic new business opportunities. Coming very soon, perhaps during 2005, the software will also make the leap to standardization across multiple platforms. The US Department of Energy (DOE) is a major sponsor of R&D for it, having singled out this technology as critical to modernizing our electrical infrastructure. Soon, perhaps just over the horizon, we'll no longer talk about distributed (in the sense of disjointed) energy, but of its successor, connected energy.

That's connected, as in networked distributed energy resources (DERs), maybe dozens and eventually hundreds of them, all selectively dispatchable from a browser interface. This means, of course, controllability from virtually anywhere. You can issue demand response or other on-off dispatches; do peak-shaving by remote-control; intervene in a grid problem or blackout; perform energy resource optimization; monitor equipment gauges and running condition to support maintenance; do load-shifting, and so on.

The benefits of being Web-connected can accrue on a relatively small scale as well, notes Campbell—say, for a single building with onsite power— or for a campus or even for a wider region. Controls for single-building and campus energy systems have already been converged with those of heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and other building systems; onsite power is then perhaps tied to a common facility console. The next step is to tie the single-site controls to a Web or other XML (extensible markup language) protocol, enabling control of that building or campus from miles away via the Internet. Beyond this, it's a logical next step to centralize the control of many resources and systems conveniently, for more efficient coordination and system maintenance.

All of which explains, in part, why a DOE-sponsored project in 2005–2006 will be underwriting a major connected-energy demonstration. One key purpose for the project will be the development and publication of a common, universal communication protocol, after the demo run. This protocol will eventually be usable by any-generation equipment vendor to enable something approaching plug-and-play connectivity among DERs.

DOE's Eric Lightner, program manager of electrical distribution system R&D, explains that, by developing a standard language for intercommunication, the agency is seeking "to take advantage of all of the advances in information technology, and incorporate them not only into generators, but into fuel cells, batteries, inverters, and even capacitors to see how they can be brought to bear on the operation of the electrical grid."

Envisioning an "EnergyNet"
Energy connectivity at this large scale draws its inspiration from what happened in the last few decades in the world of computing. Initially, standalone mainframes dominated, but soon gave way to desktop PCs. Next, these sprouted serial cables enabling them to do basic local file-sharing. Standardization arrived under Windows. Common serial protocols emerged to make the interconnectivity much easier, via Ethernets and LANs. At last the ultimate standard arrived, and a global network—the World Wide Web.

Campbell outlines a similar evolution now underway with DERs. Internet-enabled monitoring and control of DERs has already been developed by many major equipment vendors and innovative cogen developers. The next advance will come with the ability to connect resources through an open, non-proprietary universal language, just as computers now connect via TCP/IP over Ethernet. Soon, DERs will be manufactured with universal Web connectivity already built in, or at least with that capability in view, as virtually all PCs are today.

Such remote controllability and monitoring has already been around for decades, Campbell notes, via SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) cables—but only at very high cost and complexity. Thus, SCADA is typically used for running power stations, and SCADA-based software can perform meter-reading, demand metering, and full control for them. However, SCADA isn't even remotely cost-effective for smaller power systems, let alone for multiple, concurrent, real-time interactions with energy systems over distances.

Now, though, with the advent of the Internet, far more versatile and more affordable Web service tools are clearly preferable. Functions that were once prohibitively expensive are now becoming increasingly affordable for virtually any energy resource. Using XML, there's an almost unlimited operating range as well. Assorted Web-compliant software is now commercially available from several sources. Some energy-management firms are even writing their own, but Campbell advises that the DE industry should probably await the forthcoming universal protocol, which will enable true interoperability across many product platforms. Until then, the budding over-proliferation of proprietary control systems will only add to the industry's fragmentation.

Campbell's firm introduced its Web-based DER control product, called COMSYS, in 1998, and he now reports several dozen adopters. Key sectors using it include independent power producers (IPPs), energy aggregators, small plant operators who couldn't cost-justify SCADA, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and energy service companies (ESCos). A significant client is the DOE: In mid-2004 the federal energy agency extended its contract with Connected Energy for further R&D on COMSYS's ability to manage DERs on a large utility grid—a study called Advanced Communication and Control Project (ACCP). It may well offer a preview of how our electrical delivery system will be transformed with distributed energy.

ACCP partners show a Who's Who of prominent DER advocates: organizations like the California Energy Commission (CEC); New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA); Long Island Power Authority (LIPA); the California Independent System Operators (CAISO, which handles 70% of California grid); Sandia National Laboratories; and Southern California Edison (SCE). All are keenly interested in seeing how a more DER-intensive system might actually work; ACCP is now perhaps the leading model. As Campbell explains, the challenge of breaking up big multi-megawatt power plants into hundreds of smaller-kilowatt pieces, "and spreading it over the countryside as distributed energy," would still require grid operators "to be able to network it back together into a common platform so that you can manage it from a distance." That's what ACCP is now developing and testing in operation.

What's in Progress
Actually, says Campbell, three sub-tasks are currently under way. First, as already noted is developing a machine communication protocol based upon the Internet's XML code for communicating across platforms. With myriad kinds of machines and components out there, standardization in their interoperation and intercommunication is critical. Connected Energy won the contract for developing and publishing this protocol, and, whenever it is issued (perhaps in late 2005) it will provide an open, universal, non-proprietary language to the DE industry, all at no charge. Making the language all-inclusive to disparate resources will naturally require input from many equipment-makers. This is currently underway. When the end product finally emerges, Campbell predicts, "Just watch what happens when all of a sudden you have a simple, inexpensive way to network distributed energy." When the Internet blossomed, dramatic new business models emerged, and the same is bound to happen for DER, when resources can be effectively linked together. "All of a sudden," he says, "you can create ‘virtual' power plants… and eventually, all distributed energy resources will be interoperable on the Web."

A second goal is the establishment of security policies and standards. Advanced cybersecurity innovations are already underway, being spearheaded by Mykotronx (a division of Safenet), Sandia National Labs, IEEE, and the Gas Technology Institute (GTI).

A third key purpose will be demonstrating the ability to relay control-signals as these arrive from, say, independent system operator (ISOs), then dispatching these to appropriate Web-enabled energy resources. ISOs are the organizations that control state utility grids, and thus they will be the primary beneficiaries of ACCP-spawned technologies. It's even conceivable that ISOs will be structurally transformed, as grids decentralize and reshape themselves. Robustly interconnected microgrids and aggregated power networks will be enabled, resulting in more customized electric power for users. ISOs might issue a command for demand-response dispatches to DERs or perhaps ask third-party aggregators to help meet the demand. Web-enabled responsiveness is now such that, Campbell points out, "it takes about five seconds for our system to react to something that it senses halfway across the country." The nation's current system of multiple, localized grids might evolve into a better-integrated but still highly customizable "Energynet" through which energy can be controlled and dispatched across large distances, just as data is now efficiently sent via the Internet.

As noted above, tapping the Internet as a communications medium also permits remarkable scalability. Practical applications might range in size from a single building, facility, or campus, up to an ISO needing "very large numbers" of attachments, says Campbell. All the while, this connected versatility remains affordably practical at every level, even for very small resources, "so that," he says, for example, "it makes sense for a client to connect a single 5-kilowatt fuel cell, or even smaller solar system, cost-effectively."

Again, though, it's at the higher level, notes CAISO engineer David Hawkins, where DER intercommunications "will have a tremendous impact on electrical distribution." Hawkins foresees grid relief, in particular, for heavy load pockets, which are becoming a chronic problem for some systems. For instance, if a distribution network has several hundred megawatts of instantly dispatchable DER available to it, "and a system operator could see where voltage support was falling short due to an overload" or a tripped-out transmission line, he says, the operator could correct this by dispatching DG to troubled areas. "That could make a huge difference," he says. Hawkins envisions Web-dispatching as "a wonderful additional tool to help you avoid having to do major customer load-shedding" in currently over-burdened transmission areas. CAISO hopes to complete a demonstration of this connectivity on the SCE system by summer 2005.

During phase one of the ACCP demonstration (which was completed in 2004), CAISO's Hawkins used a secure Web connection to monitor multiple energy generation sites across the continental US, including, for example, one system integrating hundreds of fuel cells on Long Island; an energy plant of the Rochester, NY, airport; SCE's electric grid and generation off the California coast at Catalina Island; and another grid in Brooklyn, NY. From his desktop monitor, he says, "I could literally see the output of all these units, and when they were turned on and when they were not… it was really an interesting effort."

A second demonstration, in 2005, will expand the application to a dozen Web-connected sites, each with an excess of 10 MW of aggregated energy. At that scale in a real-world setting, developers will see how interconnected resources behave, and will seek to answer assorted questions preparatory to taking DE, says Hawkins, "to the level that's necessary and envisioned by DOE to facilitate large-scale adoption." By the conclusion of ACCP in early 2006, the DOE hopes to be able to demonstrate that a high degree of aggregated DER is manageable, and secondly, as DOE's Lightner says, that this control capability yields "some value in a competitive wholesale market" to perform tasks such as "supporting the grid during emergency conditions like load-shedding."

Some Real-World Applications
Meanwhile, as this mega-scale potential matures, there's already an established market for connectivity and control in smaller projects. A few examples from Connected Energy's client list

• Simmax, an ESCo in Southern California, is aggregating and coordinating an energy network of about 16 DER sites, each roughly 100–200 kW, ranging from microturbines to recip engines. Simmax is supplying power for an assortment of customers including a commercial laundry, hotel, and communication center.
• Ingersoll-Rand Energy Systems uses COMSYS to monitor many of the microturbines it sells and services nationwide. COMSYS is used similarly by a number of other generator manufacturers under private-labeling agreements requiring non-disclosure.
• The Long Island Power Authority has undertaken one of the most extensive implementations to date, using COMSYS to remote-dispatch power selectively from dozens of fuel cells.
• Cincinnati-based Cinergy Corp., a major diversified energy firm, uses COMSYS to monitor and dispatch a dual-fuel power plant to optimize fuel selection. The plant normally burns cheap wood chips but for peak loads must supplement this with not-so-cheap natural gas. Careful monitoring allows burning of the higher-priced fuel to match peak needs precisely. As Connected Energy's technology VP Thomas Yeh explains, "They're using our systems to remotely monitor and to schedule the operation of these units, doing peak-shaving on their particular tariff structure."
• In 2004, cogen developer Attainment Technologies LLC (of New Iberia, LA, and San Ramon, CA) implemented COMSYS to manage six new Caterpillar 3516 generators that Attainment installed for the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The software will enable Attainment to fulfill an anticipated maintenance agreement, as well as monitor emissions output, notes Ritchie Priddy, Attainment's director of business development. For this site and for others in air-quality-sensitive regions, Attainment also installed special pollution-control technology; emissions can now be monitored with onboard detectors, via the Web. Moreover, having COMSYS online will enable Attainment to remotely manage the sale of exported power back to the Las Vegas grid. Sales terms can be fine-tuned and adjusted, depending on parameters such as fuel pricing indicators, time of day, pollution condition, and demand. Notes Priddy: "You can put a bunch of different criteria in there, and the ISO can actually dispatch it for themselves." Data travels securely across the Web in a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

Other Elements Coming Online
Besides perfecting the XML protocol and completing the ACCP demo, a couple of other "synapses" will be needed in this connective matrix. These are under concurrent development. One, already mentioned, is the problem of electrical system security. In the future era of connectedness, how will power systems be protected from natural, accidental, and intentional interruptions? A number of ingenious solutions are underway, Campbell notes.

A second area is the development of physical hardware components for making equipment connections. These will serve as universal couplers, translators, and routing devices that will link a given resource with its local energy and hardware counterparts, and send and receive signals to the control center (see sidebar).

A third key element is a higher-level, overriding standard and methodology needed to integrate these sub-elements. This, too, is now materializing in the form of IEEE's budding P1547.3 document, dubbed a "guideline for monitoring, information exchange, and control among DERs." Its completion, after several years in development, is expected during the latter half of 2005, according to IEEE documents. Whenever it is finally issued, P1547.3 will establish design and performance standards for DER manufacturers to follow. It will apply to all the major energy technologies, including grid-connected gen sets, fuel cells, photovoltaics, wind turbines, microturbines, and energy storage systems. For grid operators, utilities, and energy aggregators, IEEE's standardization will vastly improve the speed and efficiency of dispatches, while also providing more consistent commands and protocols. Owners of DG resource will naturally gain from the dramatically enhanced market value and functionality their systems will acquire.

Finally, for the DE industry as a whole, the new IEEE standard—along with the new xml communication protocols—will boost the current state of the art far beyond its current model. In time, DG resources will be regarded less and less as separate, discrete engineering projects, and more like parts of a larger infrastructure, with built-in networkability. Yeh describes this as a period when DG resources will "talk to each other," share loads, and interact intelligently. (Yeh, incidentally, is a member of the IEEE 1547.3 writing committee.) New power generation that comes online will then be able to mesh easily into a network, "which lets the aggregation happen from either one control center or a multitude of them," he adds. As the new non-proprietary protocol gains acceptance, adds Campbell, "an explosion in generator functionality and value will result, with industry growth to match."

La Mesa, CA–based DAVID ENGLE specializes in construction topics.

DE - March/April 2005