Interesting development… Dominion Voltage, Inc., a subsidiary of Dominion Resources and sister company of Dominion Virginia Power, has announced the launch of a new product, EDGE Stabilizer, to help electric utilities manage the reliability impact of solar, wind and other distributed energy resources (DER) on the electric grid.
“Market forces are significantly increasing the amount of DER, and utilities need cost effective ways to safely and efficiently integrate DER into their grids,” said Todd Headlee, executive director of DVI. “In areas with high levels of DER, EDGE Stabilizer minimizes the need for additional costly hardware devices or other distribution system upgrades by orchestrating the use of existing residential smart inverters, large scale inverters, load tap changers, capacitors, voltage regulators and AMI/smart meters to ensure utility customer voltages remain in compliance.”
EDGE Stabilizer also integrates detailed weather forecasts to anticipate voltage volatility on a circuit by circuit basis.
Bacon’s bottom line: It will be interesting to see how Dominion’s right hand and left hand work together. Will Dominion Resources use its smart-grid technology to help Dominion Virginia Power, its regulated subsidiary, better integrate wind and solar into its generating mix? Or will regulatory obstacles and/or strategic considerations hamper the application of the technology? Another way of phrasing the question: Will a smart-grid technology invented in Virginia be applied in Virginia? I’ll be posing those questions to Dominion when I get the chance.
