SBIR Phase I: Integrated High Speed Intelligent Utility Tie Unit for Disbursed/Renewable Generation Facilities

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes a novel approach that can significantly improve the operational reliability and quality for disbursed/renewable generation facilities. Due to price hikes and rotating blackouts in California, the power industry has reached a consensus that disbursed or distributed generation via renewable generation facilities seems to be one of the best alternatives for future utility industry. There is a serious coordination mismatch between the local renewable power facility and the utility supply. If external faults occur, the local user will be out of power, will need to manually disconnect tiebreaker, manually connect the local generation facility to provide power, etc. This will not only cause serious problems in operation reliability and quality of service, but also significant inconvenience to the individual users. The innovation proposed is to develop an intelligent utility tie monitoring, control, and protection system that can guarantee a smooth delivery of power to the user irrespective of internal and external faults. The commercial impact of this technology would be a significant cost savings.