Carlsbad, CA- December 1, 2018– AESC is leading an important California Energy Commission-funded project that is testing innovative approaches to managing residential energy use and critical peak loads, called the Smart Home Study. The project will not only improve the load shape and minimize customer utility costs for the 100 study participants, but the resulting data will inform the sustained implementation of such high-impact energy management approaches.
Load volatility and grid reliability challenges are growing in California, in part due to the proliferation of PV solar roofs, electric vehicles and other DERs. Managing this volatility requires innovation and practical applications of technology. The Smart Home Study aims to solidify the vision of tomorrow’s grid:
- Individual homes with distributed intelligence-optimizing smart loads, in concert with on-site renewable power production and on-site energy storage.
- Load forecasts from millions of homes aggregated & provided to grid operators.
- Dynamic price signals prompting load profile and price signal iteration to achieve balance.
In addition to AESC managing the effort, the consortium of expert companies involved includes Itron, Inc., Oxygen Initiative, and Center for Sustainable Energy® (CSE). All study participants are residential customers of San Diego Gas and Electric Company (SDG&E), and the utility is supplying key project support. In the selected homes, Itron will install its IntelliSOURCE® Enterprise™Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) to communicate with DERs, such as thermostats, load control switches, batteries, water heaters and eventually electric vehicle chargers.
The recent milestone achieved includes enrolling the target number of homeowner participants. On December 1, 2018, the AESC-led initiative hit this mark and has already made headway in system installation and tracking of energy use and performance. AESC looks forward to developing the robust and informative project results over the course of the next year.
AESC president, Antonio Corradini says, “Some key learnings have already risen to the surface, and we are only getting started. We are excited about the capabilities of this project team and the implications for behind-the-meter grid management this type of technology will enable.”
The potential benefits of DERMS implementation are massive. Preliminary analysis has shown potential coincident peak load reduction of up to 7.3 GW in California. This potential assessment is based on control of 3 million residences equipped with PV solar roofs, 2.6 million 5kW residential battery storage systems and 1.25 million electric vehicles with smart charging systems.
About AESC
AESC is an energy engineering practice providing high quality engineering and management services to enable rapid deployment of efficient, cost-effective, reliable and environmentally friendly energy systems. AESC’s customized engineering solutions and services are provided to utilities, government agencies, and other organizations that seek to improve energy production, delivery, and end use. Founded in 1994, AESC has offices in Carlsbad, Pasadena, Oakland, and Fresno, California and also in Portland, Oregon and Charlotte, North Carolina.
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