The US Energy Department and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are to develop a US$135 million test centre in Colorado for new utility-scale clean energy grid integration technologies.
Colorado-based Advanced Energy Industries (AEI) has already signed up as the first private partner for the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) and plans to develop improved solar inverters at the centre.
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Located at NREL’s campus in Golden, ESIF will explore how different renewable energy technologies interact with each other and the grid at a utility scale.
Its aim is to overcome the generation, transmission and distribution challenges arising from the increasingly large volumes of renewable energy generation being integrated into the grid.
Technologies under examination include energy storage batteries and micro-grids.
The new US energy secretary Ernest Moniz said: “Our National Laboratories are a national treasure that help America’s entrepreneurs and innovators to accelerate the development of new technologies.
“This new facility will allow for an even stronger partnership with manufacturers, utilities and researchers to help integrate more clean, renewable energy into a smarter, more reliable and more resilient power grid.”
As ESIF’s first industry partner, AEI will use the facility’s utility-scale grid simulator to test the performance of its latest PV inverter technology.