Our Services
Power Systems Consulting
- Power Quality
- Power Systems
- Advanced power system modeling and simulation studies (power system dynamics, electromagnetic transients and harmonics)
- Prototype engineering software development
- Technology assessments
- Requirements definitions for new products
- Insulation coordination
- Overcurrent protection
- Event/failure analysis and troubleshooting
- Facility design review
- Transmission and distribution system interconnection evaluations
- Standards development
- Contract research and development
- Systems Monitoring
- Data acquisition, analysis and presentation over secure Web sites
- Advanced algorithm development from raw data such as event analysis
- Data acquisition device specification and development support
- Database configuration and data correlation
- Requirements definition for product development, application, and support
- Embedded software development
- Development and support of software for data downloading and analysis
- Communication network development/configuration support for data acquisition
- Monitoring project management
- Testing equipment against industry standards
- Training on industry standards and communication protocols
- Transmission and Distribution System Studies
- Wind Energy Consulting
- Reactive Power Management
- Voltage Regulation
- System Dynamics including Capacitor Operations and Reactive Power
- Generation from Advanced Turbines
- Event Analysis to Determine Root Causes
- System and Equipment Performance Validation and Design Improvements
- Investigations of Equipment Misoperation and Failure
- the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- Electric Reliability Council of Texas
- Sacramento Municipal Utility District
- Xcel Energy
- Public Service Company of New Mexico
- Vestas-Americas Wind Technologies
- GE Wind
- Interconnection studies required by regional reliability councils and individual utilities for approval of requests to interconnect with the transmission system.
- Transmission capacity and voltage stability studies, which can be critically important for wind plants located in sparsely populated areas remote from large load centers.
- Investigations of wind plant operating problems, including distribution feeder voltage unbalance and regulation, nuisance turbine transformer failures, induction generator self-excitation, capacitor bank switching failures, harmonic resonance, high neutral-to-earth potentials on rural utility feeders paralleling wind plant collector feeders, and surge protection equipment failures.
- Wind plant and wind turbine electrical system design improvements - improving feeder and turbine voltage regulation, reactive power management strategies, and dynamic thermal rating of transformers for increased capacity.
- Technology assessment and evaluation - design projects for state-of-the-art wind turbine and wind plant technology, including advanced power electronics, control technologies, and novel electric machinery.
- Technology consulting - expert testimony and analysis in intellectual property and patent matters, and in support of insurance or contractual issues.
- Leading-edge research and development - assessing the impact of substantial amounts of wind power on utility control area operations planning and scheduling, determining ancillary services requirements (regulation, load following, reserves) for wind plants, quantifying the value of next-hour and next-day wind forecasting from a control operations perspective.
- Detailed simulation and modeling - developing sophisticated electromechanical models of wind turbines, electric machinery, and power electronics elements for time-domain computer simulations to enhance design processes and improve system performance.
- US Department of Energy
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- Electric Reliability Council of Texas
- Sacramento Municipal Utility District
- Xcel Energy
- Public Service Company of New Mexico
- Vestas-Americas Wind Technologies
- GE Wind
- Minnesota Department of Commerce
- NSTAR Electric and Gas
Power Quality
Power Quality Service Overview
Power Systems
Power Systems Service Overview
Our studies and analysis capabilities support a wide range of service offerings for our clients, including:
Wind Energy: We provide expert guidance and support with wind turbine technology, wind plant design and operating issues, as well as technical questions associated with transmission grid interconnection and power system operation.
Distributed Resources(DER): We conduct technical studies, contract research and development, DER technology characterization and evaluation, DER equipment design and advanced protection system design. We can help you navigate a broad range of technical questions related to the impact of DER on distribution system design, operation and protection.
Transmission and Distribution System Studies: Our power system modeling and simulation capability covers the range of technical phenomena and issues important for highly-reliable power system design and operations.
Software Tools: We are able to develop models and generate results using a variety of programs utilized by our clients. This includes ASPEN OneLiner, ASPEN Line Constraints, PSS/E, GE PSLF, PSCADEMTDC, EMTP-RV, ATP, CAPE, WindMil and many more.
Systems Monitoring
Systems Monitoring Service Overview
EnerNex personnel have been working in monitoring of electric power systems for many years. Our staff has experience in a number of areas including product specification, software development, system applications and enterprise level data acquisition and management. We have provided support in systems monitoring for electric utilities, end-use customers, instrument manufacturers and government and private-sector research programs.
Capabilities
Transmission and Distribution System Studies
Transmission and Distribution System Studies Service Overview
Wind Energy Consulting
Wind Energy Consulting Service Overview
Wind power is the fastest growing source of new electric power generation in the world. The cost of energy from large commercial wind plants in good wind sites is now competitive with that from more conventional sources, and costs are forecast to decline further with future generations of multi-MW turbines.
Large wind plants are complex dynamic systems, comprised of many individual wind turbines interconnected with the transmission grid through an extensive medium voltage collector network. Auxiliary systems and equipment may be employed for reactive power control and voltage regulation within the network or at the point of interface to the transmission grid. Supervisory control systems monitor and direct the operation of individual turbines and auxiliary equipment in real time.
EnerNex has extensive experience with wind turbine technology, wind plant design and operating issues, and technical questions associated with transmission grid interconnection and power system operation. Our years of power systems engineering expertise, along with more than a decade of experience working with wind generation technologies and systems, is unparalleled in the industry. We can assist with almost any power system issue relating to electric system planning, design, and operations relating to wind, including:
Capabilities
Bulk Transmission System Studies - evaluate the impacts of large wind plants on bulk transmission system operations, including steady-state and contingency analysis, impacts on inter-regional power transfer capability, network voltage stability, reactive power requirements and transient stability.
Distributed Wind Plant Integration Studies - assess the influence of smaller distributed wind plants on distribution feeders and local loads, including voltage flicker, harmonics and protection system operation. We maintain feeder simulator and flicker calculations for UWIG’s Distributed Wind Impact Project.
Design and Operational Analysis of Wind Plant Power Systems - evaluate intra-plant electrical systems within large wind plants, focusing on:
Technology Consulting - provide expert opinion and perspective on wind generation and electrical system technologies, including power electronics and electric machinery for wind turbines and transmission and distribution system equipment.
Monitoring and Information Systems - specify, design, install and operate data acquisition systems for collecting, analyzing, and reporting on plant operations.
Special Studies - use sophisticated simulation and analysis tools to conduct specialized and custom studies of new technologies for wind generation applications, including advanced power electronics systems for wind turbine and electric power system applications.
Our staff has extensive experience working with a wide range of clients on wind issues. Our client list includes:
Completed projects include:
In addition to these services, we provide operating and technical support to the Utility Wind Integration Group (UWIG), comprised of utilities, associations, and governmental agencies interested in technical and economic issues related to wind generation. This has helped us to establish and build span working relationships with wind generation providers, customers and others interested in facilitating a growing industry. It has also enabled us to keep tabs on the state of the art in the integration of wind power into electric power systems.
Our staff has extensive experience working with a wide range of clients on wind projects including:
Smart Grid Engineering
- Advanced Metering Infrastructure
- Policy Development
- Business Case Modeling
- Assembling Functional Requirements
- Conceptual Architecture Creation
- Trade Off Analysis
- Reference Design Construction
- Performing Technology Assessments
- Project Management Support
- Product Testing and Vendor Evaluation
- Systems Integration Support
- Automated Meter Reading
- Billing and Customer Information Systems
- Customer Interface
- Load Control/Curtailment
- Time-Based, Critical Peak, and Real Time Pricing Programs
- Telecom and Network Communication
- Integrating Advanced Distribution Automation with the Metering System
- Distributed Energy Resources
- Energy Procurement
- Field Services
- Integrated Outage Management
- Asset Installation and Maintenance
- Program Review and Benchmarking
- Cyber Security
- Security Policy Development – We can develop effective security policies tailored to your organization’s needs.
- Security Architecture Development – We can design a technical solution to solve your security problems.
- Vulnerability Analysis
- Risk Assessments
- Security Audit Development
- Regulatory Compliance
- Demand Response
- Automated Meter Reading
- Billing and Customer Information Systems
- Customer Interface
- Load Control/Curtailment
- Time-Based, Critical Peak, and Real Time Pricing Programs
- Telecom and Network Communication
- Integrating Advanced Distribution Automation with the Metering System
- Distributed Energy Resources
- Energy Procurement
- Field Services
- Integrated Outage Management
- Asset Installation and Maintenance
- Program Review and Benchmarking
- Enterprise Architecture
- Leadership in National evolving standards, architecture and requirements, including EPRI Intelligrid, OpenSG, DoE GWAC, NIST SGIP and SGAC, IEC CIM, and IEC 61850.
- A tailored The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) including embedded use-case methodology (EPRI Intelligrid), and incremental Smart Grid artifiacts/deliverables. TOGAF is used by hundreds of organizations, numerous utilities, NIST’s SGIP and DOE’s GWAC activities.
- Experienced architects
- A proven suite of architecture offerings tiered to support a client’s level of depth, budget and timeframes. In Summary, EnerNex’s key assets are their highly skilled and experienced staff who are closely connected to both the Smart Grid and EA standards and practices. EnerNex’s leadership strengths enable us to provide our clients insight and a practical path forward from Smart Grid vision to a fully functioning Smart Grid, which is flexible, scalable, and vendor independent.
- IEC 61850 Testing
- Architecture and requirements definition
- Feature set determination and guidance
- Advanced protection scheme design
- IED selection and specification
- Data model development
- Multi-vendor interoperability testing
- Pre-pilot site testing
- IEC 61850 product acceptance testing
- IEC 61850 integration and system level testing
- Enterprise integration
- Commission testing
- Training
- IEC 61850 implementation planning and software architecture
- IEC 61850 embedded software development
- Preparation for certification testing – pre-testing
- Training
- IEC Technical Committee 57 Working Groups
- Working Group 3: Telecontrol
- Working Group 10: Substations (IEC 61850 core)
- Working Group 13: Control Center
- Working Group 14: Distribution
- Working Group 15: Security
- Working Group 17: Distributed Generation
- Working Group 19: Harmonization
- TC 88 IEC 61400 Part 25 Working Group on Wind Power Plant Communications
- UCA International Users Group
- Smart Grid Collaborative
- Smart Grid Development
- Field demonstrations ranging from narrowly-scoped automation projects to enterprise-wide integration
- Training workshops for utility partners and others
- Establishing and maintaining working liaisons with key industry standards organizations and consortia
- Encouraging standards harmonization and cross-pollination of technology between industry groups
- Miscellaneous technology transfer and industry outreach support
- Smart Grid roadmaps
- Advise on business case development
- Advise on enterprise architecture development and guide enterprise vendors
- Develop technology and vendor evaluation methodology, write/review RFP’s and responses
- EPRI IntelliGrid team
- DOE GridWise Architecture Council
- Galvin Electricity Initiative
- DOE Modern Grid Initiative Development of a reference design for demand responsive infrastructure for the California Energy Commission
- Coordinator/facilitator of the UtilityAMI organization
- Facilitation for the formation of OpenAMI
- Member of the UCA International Users Group, where company co-founder and principal consultant, Erich Gunther sits on the board of directors.
- Consultant to CEC PIER Smart Grid Program
- Utility Automation
- Requirements development
- Standards based conceptual design
- Communication network design
- Business case development
- Procurement specification development
- Implementation assistance
- Training
- Security assessment
- Contract research and development
- System studies
- Fault location, isolation, sectionalization and restoration
- Volt/VAr control
- Substation automation
- AMI
- Power quality monitoring
- Protective relaying
- Equipment condition monitoring for reliability centered maintenance
- Phasor measurement and reporting
- Advanced distribution automation
- Utility Communications
- Personnel Training – Training personnel in communications protocols and technologies
- Communication Network Recommendations
- Coordinating Communications Projects
- Supervising and coordinating your communications projects
- Facilitating Information Exchange
- Facilitating information exchange with standards and regulatory organizations
- Research – Researching the usefulness of new communications technologies to your business
- Define Requirements – Helping to define requirements for your new utility communications products
- Hardware and Software Design – Designing hardware and software systems to fit your communication needs
- Communications Software Development – Developing communications software
- Equipment Testing – Testing equipment against industry communications standards
- Opportunity Awareness – Notifying you of opportunities for interoperability demonstrations and partnerships
Advanced Metering Infrastructure
The “I” in AMI also allows a utility to cost-effectively implement a variety of modern grid applications. EnerNex knows how to help a utility get the most out of the “I” in AMI. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) consists of everything needed to support advanced metering – from the meter itself to the back-end applications associated with demand response, billing, etc. Effective AMI development, implementation and operation relies on a marriage of electric power engineering with information technology expertise – a key component of EnerNex’s capabilities.
EnerNex provides a wide array of engineering and consulting services geared towards smart implementation of AMI. This covers all phases of AMI project development, including:
Leveraging experience and methodologies established during the development of the EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture, as well as expertise gained through work with a number of clients including Southern California Edison, TXU and the California Energy Commission, EnerNex is undertaking ground-breaking work in AMI development, implementation and application. EnerNex has experience with all the major components and applications associated with AMI, including:
Cyber Security
Cyber Security Service Overview
EnerNex practices an evolutionary, standards-based approach to solving real-world information security problems. We are well-positioned with memberships in the industry’s key standards-making groups to provide services and solutions for security policy and architecture development.
We provide our clients with personal insight into security issues because we are the premier consulting firm for intelligent grid development. We have proven experience in regulatory issues and are performing ground-breaking work in utility communications security architecture. We can work in collaboration with your organization’s security department because we understand both the technology of information security and the demands of the power industry. EnerNex has provided software development and engineering support for the implementation of key utility standards and protocols.
Capabilities
Demand Response
Demand Response Service Overview
EnerNex has experience in all aspects of demand response, advanced metering and pricing programs. Our expertise ranges from analyzing and developing new technology to developing business cases and cost-benefit analyses and even includes creating and facilitating industry-wide initiatives that coordinate demand response requirements and help influence public policy.
Capabilities
Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture Service Overview
The Information Technology world is full of failures because the business drivers and automation implications were not fully understood in the beginning. For this reason, systematic enterprise architectural (EA) methodologies were developed providing clarity and risk mitigation. EA accomplishes this by focusing upon identifying and translating your organization’s business goals into the requisite business procedures, and underlying automation services.
To minimize risk, EnerNex provides:
IEC 61850 Testing
EnerNex has the largest concentration of IEC 61850 experts in the industry, including four former heads of IEC 61850 software development teams and the original project manager. Our team helped create the standard and continue to participate in its evolution and application.
IEC 61850 presents an attractive standardization scheme for electric power utilities because it defines a single automation technology for the entire substation and has the potential to cut configuration and upgrade costs across the life cycle of the substation by 75% or more. It is an international standard that is accepted and implemented worldwide by all major vendors of control, protection and monitoring equipment. Utilities implementing the IEC 61850 standard are now laying the groundwork for an enterpriselevel common communication infrastructure for electric power utilities. IEC 61850 has the potential to transform the substation like no other communications standard, through “plug and play” automatic configuration, elimination of dedicated protection wiring and the creation of smart instrumentation transformers. It specifies the requirements, engineering processes, supporting tools, system life-cycle, conformance testing and the quality assurance requirements and maintenance for the entire substation automation system.
Services for Utilities
Services for Manufacturers
Our Involvement
Smart Grid Collaborative
Utility investments are usually large. Smart Grid investments are huge and will impact a broad range of stakeholders – and the impact on those stakeholders will be tremendous. The relationship between customers and energy providers will be fundamentally changed. Costs will be certain; however, benefits will be dependent on programs designed for Smart Grid users and customer participation. Customers will have the opportunity to realize significant benefits. Change to the customer-utility relationship brings the potential for confusion, misunderstanding, and risk.
The greatest risk to utilities and consumers is that the investment will not be realized as beneficial to stakeholders to their fullest extent possible. Regulators will also be faced with a bewildering array of smart grid-related policy decisions – on everything from cost recovery, to rate design, to customer data privacy and security. Left to the traditional adversarial process in which stakeholders operate in silos, smart grid benefits can get delayed or never materialize.
Smart Grid Development
Smart Grid Development Service Overview
EnerNex has played a critical role in several industry efforts in helping to design, architect or otherwise facilitate a smart grid. EnerNex was part of the original team that developed the EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture. This team gathered information from several hundred industry stakeholders to develop dozens of use case scenarios for how the power system of today operates and how it should work in the future.
Capabilities
EnerNex is helping deploy the EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture in the utility industry. Key components of this deployment include:
Our staff is at the top of the industry. We have employees involved with a number of key industry initiatives. In addition to the IntelliGrid Architecture, EnerNex is involved in other key smart grid initiatives.
Utility Automation
Utility Automation Service Overview
Our Philosophy of Utility Automation: EnerNex is committed to using the latest domestic and international standards, as well as off-the-shelf tools, wherever possible, to cost-effectively solve customer problems. This open systems philosophy limits your exposure to proprietary software and hardware that often becomes too expensive to maintain and support.
EnerNex is also actively working with utility customers in the development of security architectures and Advanced Distribution Automation applications. We not only have decades of experience implementing communication protocols, but we have helped create them. Many of our staff are heavily involved with standards organizations such as the IEEE, IEC, Cigre` and ANSI and can bring to your company the skills necessary to architect optimal solutions for distribution and substation automation.
Capabilities
Our Experience
EnerNex understands the requirements of your utility automation applications:
Utility Communications
Utility Communications Service Overview
EnerNex provides recognized expertise in utility communications, particularly in industry standards and communication protocols. Our staff has decades of experience with numerous utilities, research organizations and government agencies in the development, implementation, integration and verification of communication standards and protocols.
Our involvement in international standards-making organizations and other standardization efforts such as the IEEE, IEC, ANSI and Cigré is the key to our work. We not only use these utility communications standards, but we help create them. This expertise ideally positions us to help you with implementation, integration or deployment of communications technologies.
Capabilities
Smart Grid Labs
- ‘Pre-Conformance’/'Pre-Certification’ Testing
- Communications
- Laboratory and Testing Capabilities
- Security
‘Pre-Conformance’/'Pre-Certification’ Testing
Communications
Laboratory and Testing Capabilities
Security
Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles
EnerNex has been participating in the EPRI /Automotive Industry effort to standardize communication standards for emerging plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles.
Click here for a recent EnerNex PEV Standards Activities Overview.
EnerNex is using EPRI IntelliGrid processes to capture and develop the requirements for communication messages between the Electric Vehicle and the Utility AMI network.
This work is being captured under efforts sponsored by Southern California Edison as part of our current SmartGrid project.
Both GM and Toyota expect to offer PHEVs into the market by 2010 and Ford and Honda by 2011.
Working with EPRI, EnerNex has attended several workshops in Detroit over the few couple of months including FORD and SAE Headquarters.
The importance of our efforts with SCE is to make sure that these new “large appliance” loads are charged at the correct time of day – Off Peak – as opposed to everyone driving home, turning on their air conditioners on a hot day and plugging in the electric vehicles causing the utility to spend more on capital. If the cars are charged smartly – smart car on the smart grid – then the utility benefits by selling more power with no additional capital outlay, hence more profits.
A report out of Oak Ridge National Laboratory recently estimated that, assuming by 2030 plug-in vehicles reach 25 percent market penetration, if all those vehicles were charged at 5 p.m., up to 160 new power plants would be needed to accommodate the additional load. On the other hand, if the vehicles were charged at night, little or no new power generation would be required.
Power providers want to know when the cars are being charged and how that connection affects the power demand of a particular house or neighborhood. In order to manage power flow, the network also needs to be able to talk to the car, perhaps telling it when to begin charging or interrupt the charging process if there is an outage or other extraneous demand on the system. There are also regulatory issues involved when it comes to reselling power that mean a landlord, for example, can’t necessarily install electricity pay stations in an office parking lot.