Secure, Scalable, Stable Control and Communications for Distributed PV

The goal of this effort is to develop a distributed control and communications architecture that refines the SunShot Systems Integration communications target metrics (below) by clearly articulating the impact of each metric on the grid. Depending on the application, some metrics may be relaxed significantly, resulting in significant cost savings. For other applications, the metrics may not be sufficient to maintain or improve the stability and security of the power grid with very high penetrations of PV generation (e.g., 2030).

• Scalability: up to 5,000,000 nodes
• Availability: > 99.999%
• Response time: < 1 second
• Cost: LCOE < 6 cents/kWh by 2020
• Interoperability: compliance with open standards

The ultimate goal is to enable high penetrations of solar generation on the grid (greater than 100% of peak load), while maintaining or improving grid performance, reliability, and security. With any system, there are tradeoffs. Dithering any of the above metrics will result in a different level of performance, reliability, cost, and security. Cyber security must also be considered. Some level of security is required to maintain reliability, but there are tradeoffs with respect to system stability, communications bandwidth, implementation complexity, and cost.