They want YOU: SEPA seeks input on grid-management system guide

As more distributed generation assets are added to the grid, utilities are searching for electricity-management systems to help them deal with their new assets – and SEPA wants your help in developing standards for them.

November 14, 2017 Frank Andorka

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For more than a year, the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) has been working behind the scenes with its utility partners to create a set of guidelines to inform the product development of grid-management systems. Now they want your feedback.

The systems, known as Distributed Energy Resources Management Systems (DERMS), will be the bedrock of a future grid with copious distributed electricity generation resources on them. With this understanding in mind, SEPA has been working with representatives of Southern California Edison, Duke Energy and ComEd since January 2016 to develop the standards.

SEPA said one goal was to provide utilities and product developers guidelines that would prevent utilities from purchasing management systems that do not meet their ever-increasing needs when it comes to managing non-traditional grid resources.

“We are committed to facilitating these important conversations in our industry to accelerate the transformation required to accommodate DERs,” said Sharon Allan, SEPA Chief Innovation Officer. “We welcome industry feedback on the DERMS requirements and expect to create other requirements documents in the future to foster innovation and hasten deployments.”

Now SEPA is asking new industry participants from both the utility and the vendor communities to review its draft DERMS Requirements document and submit commentary. Download it at DermsTerms.org, and submit your comments to hcutler@sepapower.org by December 20.

Comments will be summarized, and a meeting for face-to-face dialogue will be helSEPA also plans to conduct a meeting on January 22, 2018 in San Antonio, Texas in association with DistribuTECH 2018.

“We chose to collaborate with peers to gain a wide-angle view of the grid impacts DERs present and how utilities might best meet them,” said Erik Takayesu, Director Grid Modernization, Southern California Edison. “This document represents informed observations from utility professionals in operations, strategy and information technology functions. We’re eager to see industry comments as we innovate solutions for our grid of the future.”

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