Grid Integration and Power Systems

Sandia Energy > Programs > Renewable Energy > Wind Energy > Grid Integration and Power Systems

Sandia leverages expertise and capabilities across the laboratory to investigate the integration, operation, and control of wind power into energy systems to increase system reliability and resilience. As wind power deployment increases, new research challenges and opportunities continue to arise in a range of topics including:

Wind plant controls to improve grid reliability and resilience
Hybrid power system design and operation
Distribution-level power systems including microgrids
Physical and cybersecurity risk mitigation

The Microgrids, Infrastructure, and Advanced Controls Launchpad (MIRACL) project is a four-year research effort funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office, led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory with partners at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory and Sandia. The project aims to increase deployment of wind turbines in wind-hybrid distributed energy systems to provide flexibility, security, and resilience to distribution systems and microgrids.

Read more about MIRACL.

Wind generation continues to dominate the interconnection queues and the need for generic, standard, and validated publicly available models, for variable generation technologies continue as transmission planners are required to study these technologies’ impact on the grid. Sandia is continuing its efforts to fully develop, validate, and disseminate wind-turbine generator (WTG) models for use in power system planning and analysis—helping to reduce the barrier to reach the nation’s renewable energy goals.