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By Jesse Berst

 

In my completely biased view, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has the nation's best grid research program. I'm biased because I've served on the Advisory Board of PNNL's Energy & Environment Directorate for a decade now. In that role, I've made many trips to the lab for reviews of ongoing research.

 

During my last visit, I learned that several of the lab's research projects have evolved into tools utilities can use today. I've highlighted two of them below. (Use the comment form to nominate other research institutions and other tools that deserve attention.)

 

Simulation and visualization are essential to a modern grid. We must be able to test our systems in the computer before we put them in the ground. And we must lean on computers to help us make split-second decisions when things go wrong.

 

Consider today's estimation tools. They typically give a snapshot of the grid as it was 10 minutes ago. Given that the August 2003 blackout took nine seconds to travel from Ohio to New York, it's obvious why that benchmark is not good enough. The goal of the PNNL team (some of whom are pictured here) is to move visualization "from minutes to seconds and eventually to sub-seconds." After my last visit, I'm convinced we'll soon be seeing more breakthroughs from this team. Stay tuned.

 

GridLAB-D

PNNL has a hit on its hands with more than 10,000 downloads of this free, open-source tool. It is (to my knowledge) the only grid simulator that integrates supply and demand and price (power flow and load and market modeling). It even includes models for such things as population growth, C&I buildings, distributed generation and residential appliances.

 

AEP used GridLAB-D to estimate the benefits from the trial of a new voltage control system. After the trial, they used it again to extrapolate results to the entire AEP system and to build a business case for full deployment. Check out the article on SmartGrid.gov called "GridLAB-D: Testing the Smart Grid Before We Build It" for more. Or Google the name to download it for free from any of several sites.

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