The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recently launched the Energy Sustainability Magazine dedicated to sharing information and best practices that advance sustainability in electric power system operations and planning. AspenTech Digital Grid Management (DGM) is honored to contribute the article titled “Digital Technologies to Support Sustainability Efforts: A Perspective on Digitalization Solutions” in this inaugural issue.

The first power grid control centers used specialized computers in the 1960s. These were called Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. SCADA enables operators to monitor and control field devices from a centralized control room, essential for the safe and reliable operation of power grids.

The functionality of current control center technology extends well beyond that of SCADA into advanced analytics and optimization. Due to industry regulations, usually one control center manages large scale generation and high voltage transmission network and another manages distributed energy resources and the distribution network. Operators within these control centers are assigned to different desks responsible for managing varying assets ranging from large scale generation, high voltage transmission network, distributed energy resources, distribution network and outages. AspenTech DGM offers a complete set of solutions to assist our customers to effectively control, monitor and optimize their systems in response to the rapid growth of renewable power. Here are some key product capabilities that help utilities safely and reliably integrate renewables into their operations:

Our AspenTech OSI Generation Management System^™ (GMS) includes robust Automatic Generation Control (AGC) capabilities to manage large scale renewable resources together with synchronous generation in a coordinated manner. Our Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) is an enhanced application to integrate DER into daily decision-making processes for both transmission and distribution utilities. DERMS interfaces with both behind-the-meter DER as well as in-front of the meter inverter-based resources to provide visibility of what assets are contributing in real-time to the grid and effectively schedule or curtail these resources to maintain a balanced and reliable grid. Our robust AspenTech OSI Forecast application leverages a machine learning algorithm to provide accurate load and renewable production forecasts up to 35 days in advance.

For transmission networks, the AspenTech OSI Energy Management System^™ (EMS) products are used to monitor, control and optimize the high voltage transmission grid to ensure secure and economic operations. Key features related to increasing renewable penetration include situation awareness of inertia, situation awareness of system strength at grid points where the renewables connect to the grid, modeling of inverter-based resources (grid forming, grid following) and automatic closed loop voltage regulations.

The quantity and impact of grid sensors, devices and bi-directional distributed energy resources (DER) on distribution grid operations has grown significantly in recent years. To ensure reliable and safe operations, an Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) is required to model, manage, control and optimize all assets on the distribution grid, including DER. Distribution Power Flow uses data provided by DERMS as input to monitor system conditions and ensure the network remains balanced. Volt-Var Optimization and Optimal Power Flow are optimization-based methods leveraging the controllability of DERs to maximize the utilization of existing grid assets by operating closer to their safe limits.

These are just a few representative product capabilities provided by the AspenTech DGM product suite to help our customers optimize their power system operations with the integration of both large and small renewable assets. With the continued acceleration of renewable energy sources and heavy loads such as AI driven data centers, AspenTech DGM is continuously collaborating with our customers to advance our solutions to provide reliable and easy-to-use control room digital solutions.