The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA–E) intends to issue a new Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) in September 2019 for technologies that will facilitate risk-driven electric grid management. ARPA-E is interested in approaches that quantify, evaluate, and mitigate risk in grid operations and planning for systems with increasing penetration levels of variable and uncertain resources (e.g., bulk wind, bulk solar, and distributed energy resources). Specifically, ARPA-E seeks solutions that are quantifiable, transparent, verifiable, and agreeable to all power sector participants to achieve widespread industry adoption of a transformative and disruptive operational paradigm shift. Within the context of this tentative program, risk is defined as the likelihood and associated impact of failing to serve electric power demand given the available portfolio of assets.
Existing grid management software and operational practices assume that the grid is primarily reliant upon bulk, conventional generation technologies whose performance is well understood. As regions pursue aggressive renewable portfolio standards and as emerging technologies become more cost competitive, management practices must evolve in order to efficiently and optimally utilize new asset types for energy, flexibility, and reliability services. In order to successfully transition to a clean and sustainable electric power system, risk-driven management practices are necessary to leverage all assets’ flexibility relative to their dependability.
ARPA-E intends to develop a framework for risk assessment on the grid, at both the asset and system level. Such a framework will allow clear and transparent comparison of asset performance and delivery risk to enable accurate assessment and management of system risk position and encourage innovative risk hedging strategies. ARPA–E held a workshop on this topic in June 2019; information on this workshop can be found at the webpage (https://arpa-e.energy.gov/?q=workshop/performance-based-energy-resource-feedback-optimization-and-risk-management)
ARPA–E anticipates that this tentative program will have two main thrusts. Teams may choose to innovate in one or both thrusts.
- Quantification of risk and decision making under uncertainty practices at the asset level.
- Quantification of risk and decision making under uncertainty practices at the system level.
In order to realize the goals of this program, expertise in the following areas may be useful: (i) power systems, (ii) operations research, (iii) financial engineering, (iv) actuarial science, (v) economics, (vi) statistics, (vii) market design, (viii) data analytics, and (ix) computer science.
As a general matter, ARPA–E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Multidisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible. Furthermore, ARPA-E strongly encourages involving industry partners to advise and collaborate with teams, with the ultimate goal of achieving successful industry adoption and integration of a new risk-driven operational and planning paradigm.
The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. ARPA-E intends to make the Teaming Partner List available on ARPA–E eXCHANGE (http://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov), ARPA–E’s online application portal, in August 2019. Once posted, the Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.
Any organization that would like to be included on the Teaming Partner list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.
By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA–E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify themselves for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA–E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.
This Notice does not constitute a FOA. No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, expected to be issued in September 2019, for instructions on submitting an application and for the terms and conditions of funding.