Charlie Vartanian, a member of the Sandia National Laboratories Energy Storage program, presented at the EUCI webinar “Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs) Fundamentals, held July 29-30, 2024. Charlie presented and moderated the panel “GETs Attributes & Grid Applications.” The panel assembled by Charlie included speakers from ISO-New England and Southern California Edison.
This EUCI webinar provided a comprehensive treatment of GETs – the hardware and software technologies that increase the capacity, efficiency, and/or reliability of the transmission grid installed on existing transmission infrastructure to give operators more situational awareness and control over the grid.
Charlie’s presentation featured BESS as one of the broader sets of GETs technologies. GETs have attracted renewed FERC and DOE interest in context of maximizing the utilization of the existing power grid while preparing the grid for a high-renewables future. While the recently awarded DOE funding opportunity for GETs demonstrations focused on improvement of existing transmission capacity via dynamic line rating technology, Charlie and other speakers at the EUCI webinar shared information and insights on the wider range of grid-improving GETs, including BESS and Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS).
Socializing BESS as an impactful advanced grid technology, or ‘GETs’, will assist the industry’s continued exploration of GETs for grid applications, and ultimately consumer benefit. Current DOE-funded GETs activities are featured at Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs) – Idaho National Laboratory. The vision of applying BESS combined with advanced inverters and controls to increase renewables penetration is also supportive of the DOE’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge.
This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity (OE), Energy Storage Division.