IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2021 - 106

in my view (continued from p. 108)
resources the most economical
way to achieve grid flexibility.
✔ Local energy management with
distributed resources can contribute
to community and individual
decarbonization and efficiency
goals.
✔ Flexibility from distributed resources
can take advantage of
energy sector coupling at the local
level.
✔ Resilience is becoming an increasingly
important concern,
especially as we electrify more
critical systems, like transportation
and heat. Local resources
can help provide resiliency at the
local level. The energy management
function that is the basis of
providing flexibility can also be
critical for overall grid resiliency
management.
✔ Increasing focus on electrification
of heat and transport will
put new strains on the grid infrastructure
and require appropriate
grid investments. These investments
can be optimized by taking
advantage of local resources
as nonwires alternatives.
These advantages illustrate not only
that distributed resources provide
important benefits for the individual
consumer and the community but that
they can also be used to provide flexibility
for more economic and reliable
operation of the entire grid. With the
clear advantages of flexibility from
distributed resources to support overall
sustainability strategies, why isn't this
more mainstream already? Well, that's
what the articles of this issue are trying
to address. It's also a main focus at research
organizations around the world.
Here are some of the priority challenges
that we need to solve:
✔ market design and mechanisms
that provide compensation for
flexibility from widespread distributed
resources (including both
local markets for services to benefit
the local system and larger
system markets for aggregated
services to optimize the performance
of the broader grid)
✔ platforms and standards that
facilitate this participation and
provide some assurances to the
market about the reliability of
this participation
✔ communication infrastructure that
can support the implementation
of these platforms and standards
✔ smart metering and other sensors/
monitoring at local resources to
integrate with the communication
infrastructure and the platforms
for control, management, and
performance verification
✔ models and tools to include distributed
resources in the planning
process for both transmission
and distribution systems
✔ distributed energy
resource management
systems and
integration with
distribution operations
and management
in general
✔ coordination between
transmission
and distribution
system concerns
and potential value
streams
vehicle charging, and cloud-based energy
resource management systems.
These are examples of exciting concepts
that are moving us closer to an
integrated grid.
These contributions illustrate the
potential benefits of getting flexibility
from distributed resources. From a customer
and community perspective, the
integration of these resources provides
another value stream to help justify
investments in decarbonization, efficiency,
and local resilience.
With this in mind, I come back to
✔ cybersecurity and
privacy solutions
that securely allow
participation
without shar ing
private information
about individual consumers.
Distributed
resources can
also be used
to provide
flexibility
for more
economic
and reliable
operation of
the entire grid.
I'm very excited to see example
solutions here that address many of
these concerns. This issue describes
valuable concepts like operating envelopes,
distribution market platforms,
grid needs assessment in planning
tools, multienergy system coupling,
virtual power plants that are local network
compatible, grid-friendly electric
the theme of resilience for my concluding
comment. Whether there are
wildfires, storms, or other impacts to
the grid, the importance of resilience
continues to grow. The electrification
of critical systems will further emphasize
the value of resilience. Where
to invest in resiliency solutions is becoming
a critical planning
problem.
As we build the infrastructure
described in
this issue to meet flexibi
l ity requirements
using bottom-up solutions,
we also will be
laying the groundwork
to provide local
resiliency
solutions. These
solutions can also be a
part of the strategy for
communities to take
control of their energy
costs, decarbonization,
resilience, and sustainability.
As we continue
to innovate and demonstrate
new approaches toward our
goals of decarbonization, sustainability,
and resiliency, it is encouraging to see
the broad collaboration and sharing of
results that are helping to accelerate
the progress.
-Mark McGranaghan
p&e
106
ieee power & energy magazine
july/august 2021
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2021
