DNV GL has announced plans to support the US government agency ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy) to validate the performance of ARPA-E funded grid-storage and distributed energy (micro-grid) technologies over the next four years.1 Together with its partners NY-BEST, Group NIRE and CAR Technologies, DNV GL will provide a combination of third-party testing facilities, innovative testing and analysis methodologies and expert oversight to enable objective and transparent evaluation of existing ARPA-E grid-storage technologies through a program called Cycling Hardware to Analyse and Ready Grid-Scale Electricity Storage (CHARGES).
Under the terms of the agreement, DNV GL will perform laboratory testing at the DNV GL BEST Test and Commercialization Center in Rochester, New York. (DNV GL manages this lab in a partnership with NY-BEST.) The storage technologies will be field tested in Group NIRE’s extensive micro-grid which includes wind turbines connected to the local distribution grid. In addition to testing, DNV GL will harness its Microgrid Optimiser (MGO) tool to model storage performance, bringing together modeling and testing under one program.
Through CHARGES, ARPA-E project teams working on grid-storage innovations will have a way to evaluate their technologies in both controlled environments and under realistic grid operating conditions early in their development cycle. Furthermore, this testing and validation will provide grid operators and utilities with reliable information about the performance characteristics, operating requirements, and life expectancy of emerging technologies.
“Through this project, ARPA-E is changing what’s possible in grid-storage and working to make the secure, reliable grid of the future a reality,” said Davion Hill, DNV GL’s project manager. The project will have a commercialisation advisory board comprising NAATBatt International, NY-BEST, NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority), Con Edison and South Plains Electric Cooperative.