The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) today launched Energy Ready, a new integrated effort funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that supports local governments with free technical assistance and recognizes their improvements in planning, zoning, and for permitting distributed energy generation. Energy Ready was launched Sept. 23 and included the Distributed Wind Smart program, which will be funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Distributed Wind Smart, funded by DOE’s Wind Energy Technologies Office, will launch in the fall of 2024. The program will develop and share best practices in zoning, planning, inspection, community engagement, and financing for distributed wind. Distributed Wind Smart aims to designate 200 jurisdictions by the end of 2027. Learn more about Distributed Wind Smart here.
The virtual Distributed Wind Energy Summit, hosted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) on Sept. 18, brought together more than 125 individuals to learn, discuss, and prepare to act in support of distributed wind deployment. Participants reflected a diverse group of sectors and interests with representation from electric utilities and cooperatives, research institutions, community-based organizations, governments (local, state, federal), construction and engineering firms, businesses, trade associations, curious individuals, and academic institutions. If you missed the Summit, visit the event webpage for recordings, slide decks, and resources.
We are hard at work on policy and advocacy as always, but happy to have a long Congressional recess that began last week and runs till after the November elections. Staff have extra time to chat during the break, which is a plus. And we have more time to plan for possible outcomes of the election.
Some quick updates. First, we continue to work on the Farm Bill re-authorization. It’s still not going very well and is likely to slip into next year though talk continues of a bill during the “lame duck.” Our main priority is getting the renewable under-utilized tech reserve into the base bill for REAP. As you’ll recall the House does NOT have it, but Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow’s summary does include it.
On appropriations we are fighting for the overall WETO budget to go higher, and to make sure the low Senate number ($15 million) goes up to the House level ($25 million). I’ve contacted several of you already in this regard to help out. And even if you haven’t heard from me feel free to reach your Senators and urge that the Senate accede to the House distributed wind line item.
Meanwhile, please keep any and all ideas flowing for a new DW marker bill in the next Congress! We are working on this topic, as well.
The Windurance 90 kW Inverter at Sandia National Laboratories undergoing UL 1741 SB experimentation. Photo Credit: Jay Johnson.
By Jay Johnson, DER Security Corp; Rachid Darbali-Zamora, Sandia National Laboratories; and Paul Rowan, Windurance
A large and growing number of the United States jurisdictions have adopted IEEE 1547-2018 as their interconnection standard for Distributed Energy Resources (DER). With this change, all newly interconnected Distributed Wind (DW) converters are required to incorporate a specified set of grid-support functions and communication interfaces. Proof that a product contains these functions and interfaces is established by a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL) which certifies the product to UL 1741 SB. Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJs) confirm products are UL 1741 SB listed prior to approving them for interconnection.
The challenge for DER manufacturers is that, unlike compliance for previous versions of the IEEE 1547 standard, testing for IEEE 1547-2018 is far more expensive and time consuming. Long before engaging with a NRTL, which itself has become more time consuming, manufacturers must perform months of pre-testing to validate that the electrical and interoperability behaviors of the equipment are within allowable tolerances for safe and accurate grid operation. The result is that costs have ballooned, and the market entry times are dramatically longer than before.
Fortunately, there has been a decade-long effort to reduce test times, improve accuracy, and establish precise repeatability of UL 1741 SB testing. This effort has been led by an international community of research laboratories, the non-profit interoperability standards developer, SunSpec Alliance, and other strategic partners. The result of the effort is an open-source certification platform known as the Open System Validation Platform (Open SVP). A commercial version of this software, DER Security LabTest Pro, provides greater test coverage and automation, supports a wider array of laboratory test equipment, and incorporates additional interoperability and cybersecurity certification capabilities. These software offerings provide a new approach to certification testing that can drastically reduce the test time by automating test execution and results analysis.
NRTL test beds typically include a DC power supply, AC grid simulator, data acquisition system (DAQ), and the Equipment Under Test (EUT). With this equipment, test sequences are executed, data is logged, and the results are processed to assess the pass/fail performance of the EUT. This is done by communicating with the EUT and laboratory hardware through APIs, Ethernet, serial, or GPIB programmatic interfaces to run different tests—e.g., ride-through and trip, enter service, limit active power, constant power factor, voltage-reactive power, active power-reactive power, etc.
As a first step, the Windurance SunSpec Modbus communication interface was tested in accordance with the “SunSpec Modbus for 1547” test procedure to resolve communication interoperability issues. With that step completed, the converter hardware was installed in the Sandia National Laboratories’ Distributed Energy Technology Laboratory (DETL) to validate the electrical performance of the equipment by coordinating the UL 1741 SB tests using a combination of a real-time simulations and wind turbine emulator technologies. With the bugs worked out, the final step will be to run an automated test sweep—that takes less than 48 hours to perform—of all UL 1741 SB electrical and interoperability compliance tests with a NRTL.
This collaboration has shown the power of automated interconnection standard certification testing for the DW industry and highlights Sandia National Laboratories’ commitment to advancing sustainable energy solutions. The Wind Interconnection Standards Platform (WISP) project is designed to increased adoption of DW in the U.S. and reduce barriers for converter vendors to enter the market in jurisdictions that have adopted IEEE 1547-2018. If you would like to learn more about this research, reach out to Rachid Darbali-Zamora at rdarbal@sandia.gov and if you would like to learn more about the DERSec LabTest Pro software, contact sales@dersec.io.
The way I see it, the outcome of the elections on Nov. 5th will be hugely impactful for the U.S. distributed wind energy market and our industry. While the races for the White House and control of the House and Senate are too close to call, the situation for our industry has markedly improved over the last several months. I am optimistic that we will fare well.
One week following the election, which hopefully will have been decided, the DWEA Board will meet in Washington, D.C., for a day of strategic planning and a day of meetings with key allies on the Hill and the administration. Those meetings could be planning defense, or it could be offense. If my optimism proves prescient, then I think the DW industry is well positioned to make significant strides in federal policy and funding support over the next two to four years. USDA and DOE programs for sure, but also revisiting the Section 25D residential tax credits (e.g., direct pay and ITC bonuses), addressing utility discriminatory polices (e.g., interconnection, buy-back, maybe even net-metering), systemic permitting obstacles (e.g., height restrictions and setbacks), and environmental assessments (e.g., NEPA and Categorical Exclusions). Our opportunities list is long.
If I’m right and we are able to capitalize on a positive election result, the hard and steady work of DWEA will provide a foundation for even greater success in the coming months and years.
