PPL Electric Utilities earns award for its Distributed Energy Resource Management System

PPL Electric Utilities was named Investor-Owned Utility of the Year by the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) this week, owing to the success of its Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) for renewable power.

The system is responsible for managing distributed energy resources (DER), such as micro-grids, solar, and battery storage. Those resources are connected to PPL’s grid to optimize power quality. DERMS allows greater hosting of such connections by using its resources to offset the negative impacts of DER in high penetrations, such as high-line voltage or over-operation of connected capacitor banks.

“Our current state-of-the-art distribution management system comprises centrally managed control and modelling systems and is informed and operated by more than 4,500 distribution automation smart devices across our 10,000-square-mile service territory in central and eastern Pennsylvania,” Joe Nixon, strategic communications manager for PPL, told Daily Energy Insider.

Calling DERMS the next generation of advanced distribution management system functionality, Nixon explained, “DERMS is a marriage of advanced technologies: a control system for massive aggregations of DER and a fully integrated distribution management system. Both are innovative, but no one has yet attempted to develop them on the same platform and use their strengths to benefit customers and the grid and continue to advance a clean energy future.”

PPL, a subsidiary of PPL Corporation based in Allentown, Pa., created the innovative technology in conjunction with GE Grid Solutions. The technology is being used in the Keystone Solar Future Project, which seeks to connect hundreds of new private solar installations by 2020 with a goal of improving reliability and reducing electricity costs for customers, the company said. The project received a $3.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2017 to cover part of the project’s cost.

“The utility industry is undergoing a period of transition and change. As a company, we’re investing in digital and physical technologies to prepare for a future that embraces distributed, digitally enhanced and carbon-neutral technologies,” PPL Electric Utilities President Greg Dudkin said in a statement. “Being recognized by SEPA is indeed an honor, but also a testament to the foresight and innovation exhibited by so many at PPL who are intent on blazing new trails to better serve the evolving needs of our customers.”

The educational nonprofit SEPA seeks to annually highlight those electric industry players that advance clean and modern energy, be it through education, research, standards or collaboration. SEPA recognized PPL’s efforts through an independent panel of judges drawn from the electric power industry. PPL’s award will be presented at an event on July 29 during SEPA’s Grid Evolution Summit in Washington, D.C.