EPRI GIS Interest Group: Geographic Decision Support Systems to Optimize the Placement of Distributed Energy Resources
John J. Simmins, PhD
Serial Entrepreneur - Economic Development - Startups - Business Mentoring
The latest EPRI GIS Interest Group webcast has been posted. The intent of this webcast was to propose a Geographic Decision Support Systems (GDSS) model as a potential solution for the utility industry to assist in portfolio choices of the distributed energy resources (DER) and provide actionable information for utilities, system operators, and power producers. This presentation explores the use of geographic information systems, a class of tools for developing spatial models, with the aim of optimizing the placement of DER.
A GDSS model has been developed utilizing ArcMap 10.3 software to assist utility companies in prioritizing locations which need infrastructure work and detecting regions where DER may provide net benefits. Analysis revealed areas where the electric circuits’ capacity constraint is statistically significant and those with superior hosting capacity to allow for adoption of DER.