Automated Grid Interconnection Planning and Cost Estimation Tool

As renewable energy and distributed energy generation increases on the nation’s grids, the integration costs increase, and optimization of grid interconnection becomes critical for project development. The existing methods used for systems level design, planning, and performance and cost modeling for interconnected grids remain a labor-intensive, lengthy, and highly iterative process. A demand exists for an automated planning tool that generates cable routes, specifies substation interconnection, simulates regional grid resiliency, and provides real-time feedback on the associated system costs for new power injection projects. This will not only improve the grid interconnection design process, but allow the United States to deploy greater amounts of renewable power faster. Makai Ocean Engineering propose to mature the Phase I Automatic Grid Interconnection software tool to generate viable cable routes and specify the physical sub-station upgrades in an interconnection scheme, and subsequently estimate the system costs more efficiently. Automated planning and costing will include transmission line installation and upgrade options and substation feeders. The software will automate power cable route generation, taking into account the various constraints along a route that include not only cable costs but the terrain, environmental, societal, and regulatory information with the surrounding area. Inclusion of sub-station upgrades, including offshore versus onshore and alternating versus direct current options, in addition to cable installation costs, will provide a comprehensive tool. The proposed software, called MakaiDTG (Makaiplan Digital Twin for Grids), has been prototyped with a proof-of concept demonstration in the Phase I effort. The software leverages the cable industry’s leading submarine installation software, leading grid power systems models, and the team’s extensive experience with project planning and cost-estimation to provide a seamless workflow for the planning, trade-off analysis, and cost-estimation of power generation and interconnection projects. While the primary focus for Phase II will be application to offshore wind projects, the tools will be applicable for a wide variety of potential power generation or energy storage projects including offshore and onshore projects, with either traditional generation, dispatchable, wind, solar, or energy storage, and for standalone or more broadly networked generation and distribution projects.