Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $26 million in grants for projects that will demonstrate that the U.S. grid can reliably run solar, wind, energy storage and other clean, distributed energy sources. These demonstration projects will provide data to highlight how to achieve the goal of 100% clean electricity by 2030 while supporting grid reliability.
The U.S. grid was originally built to deliver electricity to homes and businesses from several large fossil-fuel power plants, but today's grid is a mix of traditional and renewable energy sources. The DOE investment has led to the development of new tools to enable grid operators to manage this increasingly complex network. Now, as grid operators face increasing disruptions such as cyberattacks, extreme weather events and wildfires, these tools need to be showcased on a wider scale to increase their adoption and build trust. To achieve a clean power sector, clean energy sources such as solar and wind power generation and energy storage must demonstrate their ability to support the grid during normal and emergency situations.
The Solar and Wind Grid Services and Reliability Demonstration Program will fund up to 10 projects that demonstrate how large-scale solar, wind and energy storage can support the grid by automatically adjusting to changing demand and power outages. Projects need to be tested using solar, wind or other power generation or storage technologies in power plants of at least 10 megawatts and will also demonstrate how clean energy grids can prevent outages by quickly identifying and responding to failures.
