ARIES: Energy Solutions at Any Scale

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Final Up to date on: fifth February 2025, 03:24 am

Q&A With Annabelle Pratt: Utilizing the Great thing about Arithmetic To Reply Utility Challenges

Welcome to the ARIES: Options at Any Scale collection. This Q&A collection introduces NREL’s excellent researchers engaged on Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) tasks. Their work helps reply questions on future vitality programs for communities, firms, and vitality leaders—from single applied sciences, to the influence of large-scale deployments, to total regional grid programs.

Annabelle Pratt is a chief engineer in NREL’s Energy Programs Engineering Middle whose motivation for her work runs deep.

“My motivation to work on power systems comes from my belief that electricity is such an essential utility for human life and flourishing,” Pratt mentioned. “I contribute a small piece to the bigger picture of delivering electricity to people.”

Pratt’s engineering pursuits weren’t sparked by hands-on issues like electrical motors or autos however by arithmetic.

“My two older brothers were engineers, and they encouraged me to become an engineer,” she mentioned. “I always liked math, and to me, even to this day, linear control systems are the most mathematically beautiful expressions of control. I’ve never really reflected on why I like control systems, but I guess it boils down to the math.”

On this interview, we find out how Pratt turned math right into a profession in vitality and why ARIES gives a leap ahead for her analysis. This interview has been edited for readability and size.

What was your path prefer to turning into an influence programs engineer?

I’m {an electrical} engineer who specialised in energy electronics. As an undergraduate scholar, I fell in love with management programs, however I believed that it will be helpful to get some publicity to energy programs, and within the course of, I found the sphere of energy electronics. It’s a multidisciplinary area the place you carry your information of controls programs, sign processing, electronics, and electromagnetics collectively to construct a motor drive or energy provide. Whereas pursuing my grasp’s diploma, I labored on energetic energy filters for energy programs, which was my first publicity to energy electronics utilized to energy programs.

I grew up in South Africa, and that’s the place I acquired my bachelor’s and grasp’s levels, however then I had the chance to return to the US for my Ph.D. It appeared like such an journey to return to the US, so I got here and continued my research within the area of energy electronics. Throughout my Ph.D., I used to be an intern at Westinghouse the place I used to be uncovered to what they may do on the megawatt scale. (For reference: Most analysis is completed on the kilowatt scale, and 1 MW of era can energy roughly 1,000 houses). It received my creativeness occurring the applying of energy electronics to energy programs at a big scale. I then labored at an influence provide firm on energy provides for semiconductor manufacturing after which moved to Intel Company, the place I labored on energy supply at totally different scales. Towards the tip of my tenure at Intel, I moved to work on vitality administration options together with dwelling vitality administration programs and microgrid controllers.

How did you come to work at NREL?

In 2014, I joined NREL and transitioned my energy electronics and controls background into energy hardware-in-the-loop experiments on this laboratory analysis house. That’s the area of interest I discovered at NREL. NREL was such a very good match for me throughout the nationwide lab system as a result of NREL needs to assist change the ability system and it provides help to business to try this, which is what motivates me.

Are there any tasks that spotlight the form of work you do with ARIES?

The SmartGrid Advanced Load Management & Optimized Neighborhood (SALMON) Project is one. Portland Normal Electrical (PGE) is supporting upgrades to greater than 500 buildings in two of North Portland’s traditionally underserved neighborhoods to scale back their vitality burden with quite a few vitality effectivity measures and linked units. To do that, PGE is involved in aggregating heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning programs, water heaters, battery vitality storage, and electrical autos (EVs) to provide flexibility to the grid. PGE has already chosen their management programs, however they need to consider these programs in a managed setting earlier than deploying them to see how they’ll have an effect on the grid. To judge the controls PGE will use for these houses, I lead a group of researchers that modeled houses and developed a real-time simulation setting utilizing ARIES.

So, it isn’t nearly summary math, there may be an utility and influence with it?

Sure, it’s two precise neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon, and the venture is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Connected Communities funding program. A Connected Community is a gaggle of good, energy-efficient buildings with numerous, versatile end-use tools and different distributed vitality sources (DERs). DERs are units, resembling rooftop photo voltaic panels, battery vitality storage, distribution-connected wind generators, and gas cells. The Linked Neighborhood collectively works to maximise constructing, group, and grid efficiency whereas assembly occupants’ consolation and different wants.

Linked Communities present the “art of the possible.” They’ve 9 parallel tasks which might be all demonstrating, with U.S. Division of Vitality help, how behind-the-meter DERs in buildings can help grid operations and assist buildings be good residents to the grid. The thought is that different utilities may have a look at these examples and be taught and have extra confidence in deploying theirs.

How is ARIES concerned on this venture?

Whereas PGE is working with the group to deploy extra DERs like EVs, warmth pumps, good water heaters, and residential storage, they regarded to NREL to assist make these new units work nicely collectively and maximize flexibility of their system. ARIES is the right device for this programs integration problem as a result of PGE can consider the industrial controls they chose and optimize the configuration within the security of the laboratory earlier than implementation on Portland’s grid.

To finish this analysis, we’re utilizing an ARIES functionality referred to as the Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) Test Bed. The ADMS Take a look at Mattress is a vendor-neutral analysis platform whose growth was funded by the U.S. Division of Vitality Workplace of Electrical energy to permit utility companions, distributors, and researchers to securely discover totally different approaches and software program wanted to manage vitality programs which might be turning into extra complicated, data-driven, and interconnected. The ADMS Take a look at Mattress can run totally different situations utilizing real-time software program simulations and NREL’s energy programs {hardware} for what we name hardware-in-the-loop experiments.

Our collaborative group modeled PGE’s electrical system and the residential buildings within the chosen neighborhood. With this sensible image of PGE’s system, we will use the ADMS Take a look at Mattress to run totally different situations utilizing real-time software program simulations.

One further benefit to the ADMS Take a look at Mattress is that it gives a practical mannequin of what your system appears like now, however it could possibly additionally look into the longer term. Would you prefer to see your vitality system sooner or later, maybe with extra EVs and battery vitality storage? We are able to additionally validate extra superior variations of the controls whereas utilities deploy a extra conservative model. We’re “future-proofing” their expertise and serving to them to de-risk their investments now and sooner or later.

We’ve talked about ARIES, however it won’t be well-known. How do you describe ARIES to folks?

I view ARIES by the lens of the ADMS Take a look at Mattress functionality that’s targeted on the substation stage (as much as 10,000 nodes), however we don’t go as much as transmission scales; nonetheless, ARIES can reply questions on a person expertise, i.e., from “Here is a new fuel cell technology, and I want to know how well it works” all the way in which as much as “What if I have hundreds or thousands of those fuel cells on the grid, and what is the impact of that on the grid?” ARIES can be utilized to guage that entire area—from a single expertise to a whole bunch or thousands and thousands of units.

The vary of experiments that may be performed with ARIES goes nicely past the ADMS Take a look at Mattress, so engaged on ARIES tasks can imply better collaboration with my NREL colleagues. For instance, if you’re involved in cybersecurity for grid controls, we’d work with the Cybersecurity Analysis Middle to make use of the ARIES Cyber Range and ask them so as to add a communications layer and simulate cyber assaults. With ARIES, you possibly can mix and layer totally different capabilities to reply no matter query the consumer may need.

What recommendation would you give somebody on this area?

Once I went into engineering, I had a cookie-cutter concept of what engineers do (i.e., civil engineers construct bridges, electrical engineers work on motors), however as I’ve frolicked within the business, I’ve come to grasp that engineering just isn’t so inflexible. It provides you a basis of methods to use instruments to resolve issues, so you possibly can keep on the technical path, like me, if you’d like, however you may also use the coaching to springboard to totally different areas. You aren’t locked into one factor. There are such a lot of paths you possibly can take with this basis of problem-solving.

First revealed on Nrel website. Try NREL’s Work With Us web page to be taught how one can collaborate with NREL consultants to assist reply your built-in vitality questions and to see what it’s prefer to work at NREL.