A grant from the Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technology Office is supporting Eaton’s efforts to develop a first-of-its-kind forecasting solution for distributed energy resources.   

(October 27, 2020 — AUSTIN, TX) Eaton Corporation has convened a team of researchers, including Pecan Street Inc., to develop a next-generation grid services solution to improve the overall efficiency of the electric grid and to optimize renewable energy generation.

Eaton was awarded a grant from the Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technology Office (SETO) to develop a solution and conduct a field trial in an area of high rooftop solar penetration to demonstrate the potential for these resources to provide grid services.

“We’re excited to partner with an industry leader like Eaton to develop this kind of critical technology,” said Pecan Street CEO Suzanne Russo. “As more distributed resources enter the market and make up a larger share of energy generation, new ways to manage load will become increasingly critical for utilities.”

As more families invest in rooftop solar, battery storage, electric vehicles and smart appliances, there is an opportunity to use these DERs for load control, to provide grid services, and to increase the overall reliability of the electric distribution system.

Long a global leader in power management solutions, Eaton is developing an innovative grid services approach that leverages the unique opportunity in residential DERs to rapidly accelerate the clean energy transition.

To show the full range of potential grid services from DERs, the project team will use artificial intelligence and data from Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) to develop a first-of-its-kind forecasting based solution for the day-ahead and hour-ahead estimation of reserves from DERs. These forecasts will provide granular detail for the operating system that will be used to optimize DER resources for greater system benefit.

Pecan Street will use its high-resolution energy data from hundreds of homes in its residential research network to inform the DER reserve forecasts and will work with the municipal utility in Provo, Utah to recruit homes for a load control field trial and demonstration of the forecasting solution.

About Pecan Street Inc.

Pecan Street is internationally renowned for its pioneering research model that integrates communities, technology developers, data scientists and advocates to accelerate the pace of innovation for climate and conservation solutions. Pecan Street applies a high-impact research and development approach to areas with high potential to serve as cost-effective climate solutions that are impeded by lack of data and technology readiness.

Pecan Street provides university researchers, utilities and technology companies with access to the world’s best original data on consumer energy and water consumption behavior, testing and verification of technology solutions, and commercialization services.

Its network of over 1,200 research volunteers is the first of its kind on the planet. Its anonymized research database, the largest source of disaggregated customer energy data, is used by thousands of university researchers from universities in over 60 nations and industry-leading companies around the world. Pecan Street is a 501(c)(3) applied research and commercialization institute. Learn more at pecanstreet.org.

About Eaton

Eaton is a power management company with 2019 sales of $21.4 billion. The company provides energy-efficient solutions that help its customers effectively manage electrical, hydraulic and mechanical power more efficiently, safely and sustainably. Eaton is dedicated to improving the quality of life and the environment through the use of power management technologies and services. Eaton has approximately 100,000 employees and sells products to customers in more than 175 countries. For more information, visit Eaton.com.

Contact

Clayton Johnson, cjohnson@pecanstreet.org, 512-782-9213.

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