DOE, National Labs Request NAESB To Set Standards For Distributed Resources

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
May 25, 2022

The Department of Energy (DOE), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have submitted a joint request for standards development to the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) seeking to harmonize grid service terminology and definitions supporting distributed energy resources offered by the organized markets and distribution systems.

The aim of the request is to create standardized, technology-neutral grid service definitions that can benefit both wholesale and retail electric market interactions.

The development of NAESB standards will promote more efficient wholesale and retail electric market operations while advancing market utilization of distributed energy resources, according to the request.

The parties submitted the request in support of the DOE’s Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium’s efforts to modernize the nation’s electric grid.

“A lack of common industry terminology regarding grid services can be a roadblock to the interoperability of distributed energy resources and the development of other standardized practices,” Richard Brown, principal investigator for the Grid Modernization Laboratory at LBNL, and Steve Widergren, co-principal investigator at PNNL, said in a statement.

“NAESB standardization of grid service definitions could provide a foundation for a common framework that would simplify distributed energy resource integration and enable the comparison of grid service usage across the markets, leading to improved accuracy and consistency of information concerning grid service performance and metrics,” Brown and Widergren said.

According to the request, it proposes to build upon existing wholesale market structures by standardizing common grid service names, definitions, and performance characteristics that align with the market product taxonomies and definitions identified in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Electric Quarterly Reports.

Having NAESB standards for distributed energy resources would enable wholesale market operators to associate or classify existing market products with common grid services and support more efficient communications between market operators and market participants, such as generators, distribution system operators, and distributed energy resource aggregators, the request said.

Once developed, the standards applicable to the wholesale market would provide a foundation for the development of similar retail electric standards that would serve to assist emerging retail markets to integrate, with greater consistency, the flexibilities that can be realized from distributed energy resources.

Development of wholesale market standards is expected to begin on June 14, and development of retail market standards is expected to begin later this year.