NREL awarded $2.7m to boost solar power penetration

April 7, 2010

NREL HQ in Golden, Colorado

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has been awarded a $2.7 million grant by the California Public Utilities Commission towards work that should help integrate more solar power into the grid.

The grant comes from the $50 million California Solar Initiative (CSI) Research, Development, Deployment and Demonstration Program, and will fund three distinct research projects.

NREL will work with utility Southern California Edison and others on a $1.6 million, two-year project to devise an advanced hardware and software system that could be installed in the distribution grid to accelerate integration of large PV plants into the network.

As well as investigating how high penetration levels of photovoltaics would fit into California’s electricity distribution grid, the research will include the development of a software tool to help optimize investment in retrofit residential solar projects.

The software tool, called the Building Energy Optimizer for California Existing Homes, will take in energy efficiency, demand response and energy storage systems.

Partners on the $1.3 million project include Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Davis Energy Group, Energy and Environmental Economics and SunPower Corp.

Barrier

Bob Hawsey, associate laboratory director for Renewable Electricity and End Use Systems, said: “With utilities in California and other states limiting the penetration of renewable resources on certain distribution systems to less than 15 percent, NREL has an opportunity to help the commission and its partners break through the barriers to enable dramatic increases in solar electricity deployment.”

In a third project, the Laboratory will participate in a $2.3 million program led by Clean Power Research to improve satellite-based solar resource data and ultimately create a free tool for California solar installers, manufacturers, utilities and others to use while assessing solar projects.

NREL, which is operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy on behalf of the US Department of Energy, has its main laboratories in Golden, Colorado.