POWER May 2016 - 34

DISTRIBUTED ENERGY RESOURCES
1. Power drinks. Rooftop solar is not just for homes; Coca Cola's Los Angeles distribution
warehouse has been using the 325-kW system shown here for more than 12 years. Courtesy:
Go Solar California
by the end of 2015, most of which is behind
the meter.
The New England states have a variety of
policies encouraging the development of PV,
such as net metering and DG " carve-outs "
within state renewable portfolio standard programs,
which ISO-NE expects will continue
driving solar development. As growing levels
of PV have affected bulk power system operations,
ISO-NE has worked to develop the nation's
first multistate, long-term PV forecast.
The forecast focuses on distributed solar located
at customer sites on the distribution system,
rather than on larger facilities connected to the
ISO's high-voltage power grid.
The draft forecast, updated March 7, 2016,
predicted PV capacity in ISO-NE would increase
to more than 3,200 MW by 2025. As
a result of that estimate, ISO-NE has reduced
its 2019-2020 installed capacity requirement,
which is the amount of capacity it needs to
procure in forward capacity market auctions.
An ISO-NE spokesperson told POWER
2. It's a balancing act. As recently as six years ago, there were more than 145 balancing
authorities in the U.S. and Canada, but that number has been nearly cut in half to 75 today.
Each control center is indicated on this map as a white, acronym-filled bubble. Courtesy: North
American Electric Reliability Corp.
that distributed PV is already affecting consumer
demand profiles served by its highvoltage
power system. For that reason, it
is working to develop short-term forecast
methods to accurately predict distributed
PV's hour-by-hour effect. Part of that effort
includes ISO-NE's participation in the WattSun
project.
Watt-Sun is an ongoing project, sponsored
by the Department of Energy in partnership
with the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research
Center, designed to improve the science of solar
forecasting. The technology under development
is expected to leverage deep machine
learning and self-adjusting voting algorithms
to decide between various forecasting models
and expert systems. In theory, this approach
will yield the best forecasts, and more importantly,
continuously improve and adjust as
the system is operating and evolving. Similar
projects are under way in other parts of the
country.
is its Energy Storage and Distributed Energy
Resource (ESDER) stakeholder initiative.
CAISO launched the first phase of the ESDER
initiative in June 2015 to identify and
consider potential enhancements to existing
requirements, rules, market products, and
models for energy storage and DER market
participation.
Phase two of the initiative began with
the release of an issue paper on March 22.
There are four opportunities for stakeholders
to submit comments throughout the
34
process before the ISO board meets to consider
the final proposal in October.
ISO-NE: Powering the Northeast
Although New England has some of the poorest
solar insolation-that is, the amount of
solar radiation (electromagnetic energy) incident
on Earth's surface-it has seen dramatic
growth in solar PV facilities. According to
ISO-New England (ISO-NE), the region's
installed PV has grown from less than 50
MW at the beginning of 2010 to 1,325 MW
www.powermag.com
ERCOT: The Lone Star State Grid
Contrary to what some people might expect,
considering the relatively high solar insolation
in Texas, very little solar capacity has been
installed in the state. To grasp why that is, a
person has to understand the playing field.
The ERCOT system-representing about
90% of the state's electric load-is divided
into competitive choice areas, covering about
74% of the market, and non-opt-in entities
(NOIEs), covering the remaining 26% of
the grid. The competitive choice areas were
formed in 2002 as a result of deregulation.
Natural gas is abundant in Texas and gas
prices are low. For that reason, natural gas
has filled the marginal fuel role for the region's
grid, and electricity rates have been
POWER | May 2016

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POWER May 2016

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