An Ameren Energy utility subsidiary will be working with a Canadian firm to test a transactive energy marketplace and evaluate the use of a blockchain ledger system.
The subsidiary -- Ameren Illinois, based in Collinsville -- will be working with Opus One Solutions, a Toronto-based software engineering company, the company said in statement Thursday.
"Transactive energy markets will ensure that distributed energy resources are compensated appropriately for the services that they provide," said Ron Pate, Ameren Illinois' senior vice president of Operations and Technical Services.
The main objective of microgrids is self-supply, with minimal or no reliance on the distribution grid. Yet, according to Opus One Solutions, there are economic opportunities for microgrids to use transactive techniques strategically to their economic advantage while helping operational reliability.
Identifying the value local distributed energy resources can provide to its distribution system and its customers "helps inform how and where customers should invest in clean renewable power," Pate said.
A transactive energy market platform, which runs on a software environment, allows consumers of all sizes to join traditional providers in production, buying and selling electricity. The platform will be operational, with testing to begin this year, with blockchain, a shared digitized ledger to be used in the test to account for the buying and selling of power, according to Marcelyn Love, an Ameren spokeswoman.
TESTING IN CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS
Ameren Illinois, which delivers power to 1.2 million electric customers in central and southern Illinois, said its TEM will be at its Technology Applications Center in Champaign, Illinois, at what it calls "one of the only utility-scale microgrids in the nation capable of serving live (paying) customer loads on an actual utility distribution feeder."
The Ameren microgrid at its technology facility can produce up to 1,475 kW from a wind turbine, a solar array, a natural gas generator, and a battery storage system.
The objective of the TEM platform is to "strengthen the relationships between the utility and its newly empowered consumers," said Joshua Wong, CEO of Opus One Solutions.
Wong said DERs are "fundamentally changing" energy supply and demand wherever they are located.
"The collaboration between Ameren and Opus One will make it possible to assess various valuations and use cases for locational value of DER at the grid edge," Wong said.
