Event Coverage

DOE, CAISO workshops to explore interconnection innovation at GridTECH Connect California

DOE, CAISO workshops to explore interconnection innovation at GridTECH Connect California

At the upcoming GridTECH Connect California forum event, attendees will have the chance to hear from the Department of Energy (DOE)’s experts in the interconnection field.

GridTECH Connect Forum is proud to partner with the Department of Energy’s Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange (i2X) in supporting simpler, faster, and fairer interconnection of clean energy resources. The i2X program has been an integral element of each GridTECH event since its inception, providing attendees with useful takeaways via interconnection study boot camps, town halls, and technical workshops. 

The DOE’s i2X team is led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) and Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) and is supported by several national laboratories. Leveraging diverse experience across multiple disciplines, i2X and GridTECH Connect Forum facilitate collaboration via stakeholder engagement, data collection and analysis, strategic road map development, and technical assistance. By incorporating a wide range of energy stakeholders, we can develop solutions to interconnection challenges that ensure a cleaner and more efficient grid. 

Join us at GridTECH Connect California, June 24-26, 2024, in Newport Beach, CA! With some of the most ambitious sustainability and clean energy goals in the country, California is at the cutting edge of the energy transition while confronting its most cumbersome roadblocks. From electric vehicles to battery storage, microgrids, community solar, and everything in between, attendees will collaborate to advance interconnection procedures and policies in California.

“GridTECH Connect embodies a spirit of inclusivity and collaboration when it comes to solving the most pressing grid interconnection challenges,” said Ammar Qusaibaty, Senior Advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy’s i2X initiative. “I’ve attended the conference for years and know that attendees’ voices bring immense value, making it a great forum for sharing and learning in order to develop new approaches to bringing more clean energy to the grid.”

Attendance at the DOE workshop is complimentary with your GridTECH registration. 

Department of Energy workshop – DOE i2X and CAISO interconnection

Monday, June 24 | 1:00-5:00 PM

California grid operator CAISO is revising its interconnection policies to address unprecedented and unsustainable request volumes. On the first day of GridTECH Connect Forum, the Department of Energy will host a workshop dedicated to making sense of the new process.

The workshop will be broken into three parts. The first will provide attendees with an understanding of the changes made to CAISO’s interconnection process. The second will revolve around findings from DOE’s updated Transmission Interconnection Roadmap, and the final portion will task attendees with implementing what they’ve learned to find interconnection solutions under specific parameters.

Learn more here.

Part 1 – Navigating CAISO’s new interconnection process

The Department of Energy’s Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange will introduce participants to the reworked CAISO interconnection process and share ideas to help navigate it efficiently. In partnership with a CAISO representative, i2X will delve into the 2023 Interconnection Process Enhancements (IPE) initiative and explain how enhancing coordination of resource procurement and interconnection, resource planning, and transmission planning can achieve state reliability and policy needs. Attendees will garner a firm grasp on the intricacies of the new process and how interconnection practices should work in California.  

Part 2 – The I2X transmission road map

In collaboration with a diverse cast of clean energy stakeholders, DOE has released the first draft of its Transmission Interconnection Roadmap addressing interconnection challenges on the transmission grid and seeking feedback from the public. DOE is prepared to unveil a finalized version of its roadmap leading up to GridTECH Connect Forum – California.  

In this portion of DOE’s workshop, i2X and its lab partners will share the findings of that new and improved roadmap, which is intended to serve as a practical guide for implementing near- and long-term solutions to interconnect clean energy sources and clear the existing backlog of solar, wind, and battery projects in queues. Attendees will learn about the changes made during the public feedback period and walk away with the understanding necessary to facilitate new interconnection solutions.

Part 3 – Envisioning interconnection in California

The final portion of DOE’s workshop will enable attendees to put what they’ve learned into practice.  

Combining their understanding of CAISO’s new process with DOE’s transmission roadmap, participants will be challenged with interconnection exercises that test their ability to identify efficient solutions.  

This mostly-analog, discussion-focused segment will introduce thought problems that envision the interconnection process under specified conditions and parameters. Participants will break off into small groups to think through options from their unique perspectives, then reassemble to share their line of thinking with the larger audience.  

Attendees will leave this session with practical, useful interconnection knowledge that can be leveraged in our everyday jobs. 

Interconnection process innovations and use cases

Tuesday, June 25 | 1:15-2:00 PM

In this session, Sandia National Laboratories will share findings from its work with utilities to improve DER interconnection. Sandia will present tools and algorithms that incorporate customer smart meter data and estimate the amount of solar that can be installed at a given location.

Attendees will learn about challenges and solutions for interconnecting distributed energy resources in downtown secondary grid networks. This session will present ideas for increasing the hosting capacity of distribution networks through switching changes to reconfigure the system.

Learn more here.

Department of Energy: i2X town hall

Wednesday, June 26 | 11:30 AM-12:15 PM

The U.S. Department of Energy Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange (i2X) convened diverse stakeholders across the U.S. electricity ecosystem to formulate a practical 5-year Strategic Roadmap for implementing simpler, faster, and fairer interconnection processes while enhancing the reliability, resiliency, and security of our distribution and transmission grid networks.

Through a series of virtual meetings covering key issues such as cost allocation, queue management, data transparency, equity, workforce, and grid engineering practices, the i2X team facilitated numerous open dialogues about important interconnection issues, knowledge gaps, practical short-term solutions, and few paradigm-shifting ideas. The result is a roadmap for the next five years of interconnection innovation for stakeholders by stakeholders.

Learn more here.

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