Palo Alto, Calif.: A collaborative team led by the Electric Power Research Institute published some new language January 14 – a new “Application Note” – to help grid operators communicate with distributed energy resources (DER) and enhance the use and value of energy storage and solar generation connected to smart inverters.
“DER are developing rapidly to provide new capabilities in serving customers and the grid. Yet without a standard way for utilities to communicate with new technologies, they cannot reach their full interactive potential,” said Ben Ealey, EPRI senior project manager and the project’s primary investigator. “We closed gaps in older communication models, which didn’t have the ‘words’ to command new capabilities of smart inverters and battery storage. We’ve added ‘new words’ for utility grid operators to use that can unlock emerging capabilities of DER, most specifically within the storage domain.”
The note, DNP3 Application Note AN2018-001 – DNP3 Profile for Communications with Distributed Energy Resources, integrates information from the latest field tests, as well as smart inverter functionality, and provides a standard information model for communicating with DER using Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standard (IEEE Std.) 1815TM – 2012 (DNP3) that complies with functional requirements in California Rule 21 and IEEE Std. 1547 TM-2018.
The team explains that, generally, “application notes” provide examples of and suggestions for implementing standards in a specific domain of the industry. This Application Note contains a standardized list of DNP3 inputs and outputs and the specific mapping of information communicated within each point. It also includes functional definitions and mapping with the internationally recognized information model IEC-61850-7-420.
Communications Manager Donald Cutler at EPRI says the new definitions “[are available in] Canada now and we are waiting to see if it will be adopted continent-wide. There are additional application notes that will be published that build upon this one, but all support the sector standard for DER communications.”
Led by EPRI, the group includes the DNP Users Group, the MESA Standards Alliance (MESA), SunSpec Alliance, EnerNex, and Xanthus Consulting, and is funded in part by the California Energy Commission (CEC).