Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Solar Energy Technologies announced a $25 million grant to develop integrated “solar + energy storage” technologies to prevent power outages caused by extreme weather and other events and improve community energy resilience. The details are as follows:
1. Community-based energy resiliency planning framework (funding 6-8 projects, $50-1 million per project)
The project will collaborate with multiple stakeholders to develop an energy resiliency planning framework at the community level. The project content includes the development and integration of new or existing indicators, covering: ① various energy end scenarios, such as climate and weather-related extreme events; ② possible cascading of related infrastructure services (such as water supply, communication, fuel, etc.) failure; ③ and other factors that affect energy resilience. According to the developed energy resilience planning framework, the best locations for the integrated deployment of “PV + energy storage” will be identified to improve community energy resilience.
2. Automation strategies for rapid restoration of energy supply (funding 5-6 projects, $200-300 per project)
The project will develop and demonstrate novel sensing and communication technologies to rapidly identify available power resources for rapid restoration of power systems after extreme events, including the design and integration of automated procedures for distributed solar technology to achieve rapid restoration, including: ① Develop low-cost sensing and communication technologies (including but not limited to hardware, software and control systems) to improve situational awareness, sensing technologies will include the use of proven hardware solutions to strengthen photovoltaic power generation systems against extreme weather events ②Provide data analysis processes and actionable information to coordinate and automate the establishment of the most effective, safe and fair energy supply recovery path; ③Provide project demonstration scenarios, including the “solar + energy storage” integrated system in Strategies to provide basic services to communities during the restoration of major energy infrastructure, and an integrated “solar + energy storage” system to help repower local power systems.
3. Develop solutions to improve the resilience and stability of photovoltaic power plants (funding 2-3 projects, USD 1.5-3 million per project)
The project will utilize novel sensing devices, communication strategies and data analytics to improve the resilience and stability of the power generation side to minimize damage to equipment during extreme climates. Among them, the important development directions of photovoltaic systems include: ① photovoltaic modules; ② power transmission chain between photovoltaic modules and inverters, such as connectors, wiring, fuses, combiner boxes, etc.; ③ photovoltaic module installation structures, such as fixed tilt brackets or Tracking equipment; ④ Power conversion equipment, such as inverters and power optimizers.
