DER - Storage

DOE to offer $50M for DER demonstrations by utilities and developers

DOE to offer $50M for DER demonstrations by utilities and developers
(Image by Como una Reina from Pixabay )

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) released a new $50 million funding opportunity meant to help the United States develop more reliable, resilient, and cost-effective energy systems that better support the rapidly changing electric grid, as well as the growth of electric vehicles (EV), energy storage, and the electrification of buildings and industry.

In this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), OCED is seeking projects that can demonstrate that aggregated and coordinated distributed energy resources (DERs) can provide reliable, predictable grid services for a wide range of system configurations.

The program goal is to build confidence that the design, control, and compensation approaches developed can be readily applied to other portions of the distribution grid and extended to other mixes of DERs, potentially extending the value of this approach to a more diverse set of communities, individuals, and entities as the distribution system continues to change.

OCED will provide up to 50% of the cost share for 2 to 4 utility- and/or private-sector-led projects to demonstrate the reliable operation and financial value of connected energy systems with high levels of renewable generation and a variety of connected energy assets.

Distributed energy systems encompass not only distributed energy production such as rooftop or community solar and distributed wind, but also the flexible management of those sources and energy use by buildings, EV charging infrastructure, heat pumps, and other drivers of electric demand.

Scaling distributed energy systems can allow for more effective delivery and use of clean, reliable power for more communities, reducing electric losses along transmission and distribution lines and increasing grid resiliency. As more sectors turn to electrification to meet decarbonization goals, the ability to manage a more diverse set of grid assets could add energy resilience to address increased grid strain and disruptions due to severe weather events caused by climate change.