P2P Transactions with Demand Flexibility for Increasing Solar Utilization

As installations of solar photovoltaics continue to soar, addressing the integration challenges that arise from high penetrations of solar will be paramount to achieving the SunShot Initiative 2030 goals of $0.03/kWh to $0.05/kWh levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). Specific challenges related to system ramping and over-generation tend to degrade the value of PV, and solutions are needed to address these issues. Harnessing load flexibility can create “virtual storage,” that can be intelligently dispatched to increase the utilization of solar energy by better aligning demand with solar supply and reducing peak system capacity needs. This project develops smart, automated contracts to orchestrate advanced operation of distributed energy resources and flexible loads through peer-to-peer energy transactions. In Phase I, an advanced demand response smart contract was prototyped, along with a market clearing mechanism for matching buy and sell offers in a transactive peer-to-peer market. An intelligent control engine was adapted to develop dynamic offers of building flexibility to bid into the peer-to-peer market. Initial simulation testing highlights how the smart contracts and intelligent controls can be utilized to provide automated response. In Phase II, simulation of the complete platform will be used to evaluate several transactive market designs, and quantify the potential of the technology to address the targeted grid challenges posed in selected use cases. Following a successful simulation phase, field demonstrations would be pursued for one or more use cases. It is anticipated that dispatching advanced load flexibility through peer-to-peer transactions will increase the economy and reliability of the electric grid while permitting greater utilization of solar energy resources. In addition, the implementation of peer-to-peer transactions on blockchain technology promotes distributed, transparent, secure, and automated accounting that can lower the cost of managing advanced distributed resources. The blockchain-enabled flexible load control platform should be widely applicable as a control retrofit to numerous existing buildings. Although the initial application will focus on enabling load flexibility for greater utilization of solar energy, it is anticipated that the platform will be extensible to other DERs and microgrid applications.