A simulation lab for New York’s power grid has a new home in Albany.
The ribbon was cut on the New York Power Authority’s newly relocated Advanced Grid Innovation Laboratory for Energy, or AGILe, on Wednesday.
President and CEO Justin Driscoll says the project, housed at the Albany NanoTech Complex, enables NYPA to model the effect of new technology and environment on the grid.
“We were going to model 230 kV and above and, and see what was going on with the grid, and what would it look like if you plugged in a wind farm over here, or you added a battery here, or a solar project. So we started off there, but over these past several years, we've been working our way further and further down into the voltages,” Driscoll said.
Driscoll says they’ve been able to model down to 13 kilovolts, just above the residential level of 12kv, adding the new space is a step up from the closet that housed the lab at its previous home in White Plains.
He says the lab’s data modeling capabilities are key to the development of New York’s grid. Central to the lab is a digital twin — an exact computer replica of the state’s power infrastructure. Using the twin, researchers can test the impact of expanded infrastructure and technology.
“We can plug in a wind farm, as I said, and see what that might look like. We modeled a cyber-attack on the grid through our partners at Dragos to give us an idea of what a cyber-attack on the system would look like,” Driscoll said.
Researchers then compare the expected result of the technology in the simulation against the live feedback, enabling more streamlined research and development.
Doreen Harris is President and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, NYSERDA. She agrees with Driscoll: the live-modelling capacity is key for future-proofing the grid.
“When we talk about 70 by ’30, or zero by ’40, or distributed energy resources, et cetera, we need to think about what that actually means in practice, and where we sit today. So many of the models that we utilize are static, they are not reflective of the ability to actually deploy technologies in a format like AGILe, so that then we can more effectively and swiftly deploy them at scale,” Driscoll said.
Assemblywoman Pat Fahy, a Democrat from the 109th District, says computer modeling has already shown real-life applications.
“For decades, we trained pilots, we trained military personnel, we trained surgeons with modeling and simulation. That's what this is, it is about fueling innovation through the modeling, through the simulation, and trying out these new technologies,” Fahy said.
Lucas Rogers is Economic Development and Sustainability Coordinator under Albany County Executive Dan McCoy. Rogers says AGILe helps support McCoy’s efforts to make Albany County a “green county.”
“We are adding renewable generation and storage. We are transitioning to electric vehicle fleets. We are transitioning to clean heating and cooling, while at the same time working to attract new manufacturers and economic growth to our community. Those are all challenges and opportunities that are essential and rely upon a grid that is dynamic, reliable and secure,” Rogers said.
On a tour of the facility, Rahul Kadavil, a power system engineer with AGILe, demonstrated a simulated disturbance in the grid, triggered by a Big Red Button.
“It looks like a nuclear launch,” Kadavil said.
A volunteer presses the button, and the lights in the simulation room flicker, while graphs representing the total voltage and frequency, or hertz, produced by the grid flatline before quickly recovering back to baseline.
Kadavil says while this was just a simulation, the grid twin reacted as the real one would:
“We have generation assets in and around New York State such as the hydros, other generating units. They sense that disturbance and immediately kick them to push back on it,” Kadavil said.
Reza Pourramezan is Senior Power Systems Engineer with NYPA. He says real-life technology can be plugged into the simulations.
“These will include renewables, battery, energy storage system, EV charging stations, and all types of inverters interfaced with our simulations and real time simulators. This platform will allow us to run all type of smart applications in larger scale grids, including solar farms, wind farms, and battery storages,” Pourramezan said.
You can see pictures of the lab in the gallery of this article.
