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Grid Management 2.0 - Virtual Grids
Utilities globally face many of the same challenges; as societies push towards more sustainable infrastructures, a high percentage of these efforts rely on renewables for energy generation. The drivers for this trend are varied and can be societal, regulatory, security or even economic. As more renewables are added to the grid, they further stress an electrical infrastructure which in many cases is near the end of it’s design life and unintended for the realities of today’s needs for transmission and distribution resiliency and efficiency.
Considering these challenges, utilities are under pressure to find cost effective ways to mitigate the impacts of renewables and transform their business models to take advantage of distributed generation through better, faster, safer and more profitable management of the grid and its assets. To meet these challenges, progressive utilities are increasingly turning towards the concept of customer-sited integrated solar plus storage which can be aggregated and controlled remotely via software tools.
The name Asoba DeFi refers to our decentralized finance approach to raising capital. Decentralization is also the key to improved grid management with respect to availability. Networks of renewable distributed energy resources (DERs), particularly solar plants with battery storage, can be leveraged to dispatch power within a system based on immediate demand in conjunction with demand response programs.
Virtual power plants (VPP) manage these networks of on-site generation and battery storage systems. VPPs are software solutions that can perform detailed and automated load management, matching grid inputs with demand in real-time. This ensures that even when total demand exceeds local capacity, power needs of users can be met fully without the need for load shedding or blackouts.
The next evolution of Asoba DeFi's service across southern Africa is the connection of solar farms and energy storage systems we install into clean energy networks managed with our own virtual power plant software.
Our tool can be used to either simulate system load or connect to remote sensor, in either case as a way of identifying patterns for optimizing load within the clean energy network. The end result is a tool that grid operators can use to quickly determine where and when to ramp up/down dispatchable power resources in an effort to maintain 100% reliability to power consumers.
Last modified 2mo ago