Northern Ohio institutions become laboratories for future energy usage

The effort begins this month with a one-year award administered by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

(PNNL). The Department of Energy-funded project is an expansion of transactive control demonstration activities ongoing at PNNL. Corporate partners FirstEnergy, Eaton Corp., Siemens and Johnson Controls are participating in this three-site activity. The total project investment from DOE and industry exceeds $1 million.

Called the Northern Ohio Building-to-Grid Integration Demonstration, the project will develop and demonstrate strategies incorporating smart building technologies on the three campuses with traditional, solar and wind power sources; batteries used for backup power, meeting peak demand and for non-peak storage; electric vehicle charging stations and more. The research would benefit municipalities, utility companies, building owners and others.

"By using a 'living laboratory,' we can experiment with and demonstrate the real impact these distributed energy resources have and better position us to manage the grid of the future so that we save energy, maintain reliability, reduce costs and preserve customer quality of service," said Alexis Abramson, director of the Great Lakes Energy Institute at Case Western Reserve and the Milton and Tamar Maltz Professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), who spearheaded efforts to include grid technology pilots in DOE funding legislation, welcomed the news of an Ohio-based collaboration. "Energy storage, renewables, and grid integration are linchpins in a bright new-energy future for the nation. This collaboration will help us to lead the way in launching new energy technologies borne out of efforts to produce the best research possible, from right here in Ohio," said Kaptur.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2016-12-northern-ohio-laboratories-future-energy.html#jCp