PNNL

The Electricity Infrastructure Operations Center at PNNL will host the web portal and repository for realistic grid data developed under this new ARPA-E program.

Testing new theories and technologies to improve the nation's electric grid will be simplified by projects conducted by PNNL and its partners under a new program, GRID DATA (Generating Realistic Information for the Development of Distribution and Transmission Algorithms). Partners include the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, GE Grid Solutions, PJM Interconnection, the California Independent System Operator and Avista.

Funded by DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E), the program will enable data-based modeling of challenging power grid environments. It will help create open-access power grid data sets so that researchers and industry can test their theories and technologies against a model complete with details that will tell them how their ideas would work.

The $3 million program features two projects to support the development of new methods for making the increasingly complex grid operate reliably and cost-effectively:

The sustainable data evolution technology (SDET) project will compile features and metrics from many private data sets provided by PNNL’s industry partners to describe the physical power grid, the transactions that occur on it, and its overall performance. The data sets will provide realistic numbers for developing algorithms needed for modeling to enable utilities and grid operators to confidently adopt new technologies developed to modernize the grid. The team will develop data creation tools; use them to generate large-scale, open-access, realistic data sets; and then validate the data sets using industry tools provided by GE Grid Solutions. The power system model repository project will build the repository—DR POWER (Development of the Data Repository for Power System Open Models With Evolving Resources)—for the open-access power grid models and data sets, including data sets created by other GRID DATA projects. A web portal will enable distribution of open-access models and scenarios. It will include the ability to collaboratively build, refine, and review a range of large-scale realistic power system models.

For more information about these two projects, read the PNNL News Release.