Real-world experience balancing the grid with demand-side flexibility

Abstract: There is broad agreement that large-scale decarbonization will require large amounts of grid-balancing flexibility from customer-sited resources, such as smart thermostats, water heaters, electric vehicles and home batteries. There is a long history of academic research into advanced control algorithms for demand-side flexibility, but what has been deployed in the electricity industry, until very recently, has been very simple demand response to reduce peak loads. In this talk we will discuss a number of recent results from real-world implementation of advanced forms of demand-side flexibility with EVs, thermostats and water heaters.

Bios: 

Stephanie Ross is a Data Scientist at EnergyHub, where she develops advanced algorithms for EnergyHub’s DERMS platform. Before joining EnergyHub, Stephanie led Green Mountain Power’s strategy for DER management and developed pilots for emerging technologies. Prior to GMP,  Stephanie was a consultant at the Brattle Group where she conducted resource planning studies focused on decarbonization for a wide range of clients, including the New York ISO, utilities, EPRI, and the DOE. Stephanie holds a BA and BE in Electrical Engineering from Dartmouth College and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan where her research focused on advanced control algorithms for DER management.

Paul Hines is VP, Power Systems at EnergyHub, where he leads the Data Science and Power Systems Intelligence (DataPSI) team, which develops and maintains advanced control, prediction, analysis and machine learning algorithms used in EnergyHub’s DERMS. Paul joined EnergyHub in 2021 through the acquisition of Packetized Energy, a distributed energy software startup, where he was co-founder and CEO. From 2007-2021, Paul was a professor in electrical engineering and director of the energy systems laboratory at the University of Vermont, leading research on energy reliability, resilience and distributed technology and policy. Formerly he worked in power systems engineering roles at the US National Energy Technology Laboratory, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Alstom ESCA, and Black and Veatch. Paul has a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University in 2007, and MS and BS degrees in electrical engineering/power systems from the University of Washington and Seattle Pacific University.