POWER April 2014 - 92

COMMENTARY
Energy Systems Integration:
Innovative Solutions for an
Integrated World
Dr. Bryan Hannegan
T
he U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) is spearheading innovation in
Energy Systems Integration (ESI) research. ESI is a comprehensive
strategy that brings together many energy carriers,
such as electricity, fuels, heating and cooling, and adds other
infrastructures, such as water and transportation. This integration
will bring about new, more sustainable solutions for energy
generation, delivery, and use.
We are undergoing an unprecedented transformation of our
nation's energy system-changing the way we have been producing,
delivering, and consuming energy over the past 100 years.
This new energy era will include renewable sources such as wind,
solar, and hydropower as well as nuclear energy and fossil energy
such as oil, coal, and natural gas.
This energy supply is delivered through systems that occur
at a variety of scales-from individual homes and businesses to
energy systems that stretch across the continent. And, these systems
are evolving to provide clean energy to consumers, using
increasingly variable sources of electricity, to meet new variable
consumer demands from smart appliances to electric and alternative
fuel vehicles entering the market.
New Connections
Connections are also developing among the energy infrastructure
and communications networks as well as other traditional
infrastructures such as water and wastewater systems. As we see
these connections evolve, it is causing us to rethink the traditional
paradigms of energy system planning and operation with a
strong focus on how we achieve the most efficient, flexible, and
reliable energy system-one that enables planning and operations
across interdependent domains (fuels, electricity, thermal,
water, communications) to provide the required energy services
to consumers at an affordable cost.
NREL is leading a worldwide conversation on how these connections
will change the way we generate, deliver, and use energy.
While we can't anticipate the nearly infinite number of
combinations of technologies, data, and devices that will interact
in an integrated energy system, we do know that ESI is much
broader than just building a smarter grid. By focusing on the
optimization of our entire energy system, new research in ESI
can increase efficiency, reliability, and performance while reducing
cost and minimizing environmental impacts.
Looking ahead, we see ESI research examining the following
interconnected and evolving elements of our energy system:
■ A layer of physical energy devices that produce, consume,
store, or transport energy, such as high-voltage wires, a wind
turbine, or even a refrigerator motor or a dishwasher.
■ An electromechanical-, electronic-, or software-based local
92
controls layer necessary to allow these physical devices to
respond to external signals in an optimized way.
■ A communications layer, consisting of secure and private information
and computation platforms necessary to support
control applications at the system level.
■ A layer of systems controls, ensuring the reliability of the
physical devices interconnected to hosting infrastructures.
This could include monitoring and energy network security
assessment.
■ A dynamic market layer, responsible for addressing economic,
optimization, regulatory, financial, and policy aspects of the
energy system and its environment.
By focusing on the optimization of
our entire energy system, new research
in ESI can increase efficiency,
reliability, and performance
while reducing cost and minimizing
environmental impacts.
New Tool in the Toolbox
To help NREL bring all of these elements together, the DOE has
built the 182,500-square-foot Energy Systems Integration Facility
(ESIF) on NREL's campus in Golden, Colo. ESIF provides
researchers with a unique set of resources and capabilities in
one location, including megawatt-scale hardware testing; selfcontained
electrical, thermal, and fuel distribution busses; high
-performance computing; and data analysis and visualization.
ESIF offers utility executives and other decision-makers a
place to research new technologies in an environment that is
friendly to exploration. ESIF will allow utility companies and investors
to " touch the technology " and see it working in real time
and on a large scale. Industry is eager for this experience; we
have many partners already doing work at ESIF and many more
have expressed interest.
Looking ahead, ESI is about tapping into the combined
strength of these systems and squeezing more value out of every
unit of energy we use while reducing costs and minimizing environmental
impacts. The Energy Department has long-term energy
goals of providing 80% of electricity with clean energy sources
by 2035. A commitment to ESI can help us reach that goal. ■
-Dr. Bryan Hannegan is associate laboratory director for ESI
at NREL and has led several research programs for the Electric
Power Research Institute and served as a senior energy advisor
to the White House and the U.S. Senate.
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POWER April 2014

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