Vertum Partners Lp — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 16a

Description

Utilities, electrical grid systems operators, the Department of Energy and the public confirm that the vertically integrated model of energy supply no longer reflects the booming distributed solar reality. With a new ability to cost-effectively tap solar resources at a community level, the energy market may begin to resemble the economics of the Internet, where marginal costs approach zero and predictive services have more and more importance. To meet this challenge, new software systems must have the ability to efficiently collect, store, manipulate, and visualize vast, diverse, and complex streams of data for distributed solar analysis with a foundation in meteorological modeling. Utilities throughout the United States will provide leadership in both client facing information services and better optimization of distributed solar. New integrated predictive systems commercialized for these Utilities will help revolutionize the operations of stakeholders throughout the solar value chain: from electric utilities managing distributed generation; to solar fleet operators designing installation and maintenance plans; to the broad ratepayer community looking for ways of reducing costs throughout the day. New data-centric, Utility-focused prototypes will be developed during Phase I of this Project. They will be evaluated in terms of reduction in overall utility cost and improvements to grid operations. These innovative tools will intelligently integrate numerical model guidance; along with on site and remotely- sensed observations, to produce real-time forecasts and build a historical database matching distributed weather-dependent variable generator production with demand. There is material commercial promise with these products that will provide better 1) optimization of new solar installation revenue, 2) implementation of time-of-day utility rate programs and 3) mitigation of the costs associated with distributed solar electricity operations. Products developed with this funding have the potential to provide more effective management of supply and demand, with corresponding savings for the Utilities and day-to-day savings for the residential, school and business users of solar energy.