Itron and Xcel Energy are collaborating to manage the growing number of distributed energy resources (DERs) in Colorado.

Washington-based Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio is to provides grid support with residential battery energy management.

The partnership with Minnesota electricity utility Xcel Energy will manage the growing number of DERs in Colorado, including residential battery energy storage, to support grid flexibility and customer choice.

As part of this collaboration, Xcel Energy has contracted with Itron to deploy an aggregator distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) from Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio to help manage DERs (na.itron.com/what-we-offer/derms-overview).

On average, 25% of all US homes with solar PV also have battery energy storage. As consumer adoption of battery energy storage continues to grow, energy providers can use aggregator DERMS to enlist consumer-owned residential battery storage at the edge of the grid as a resource to support the grid.

Residential batteries and other DERs can help optimise grid operations, promoting reliability, lower energy costs and increased customer choice to adopt solar generation and electric vehicles. Aggregator DERMS enables both aggregated management of DERs for tasks such as load balancing and demand response as well as localised management of DERs for managing solar panels, EV chargers and smart thermostats.

Itron’s aggregator DERMS allows Xcel Energy to use residential battery storage through its renewable battery connect programme to manage peak loads and to support a reliable electric service.

“As we lead the clean energy transition, Xcel Energy continues to make strides to deliver energy to our customers when and where they need it,” said Emmett Romine, vice president at Xcel Energy. “Using our virtual power plant programme – Renewable Battery Connect – we can manage DERs to help our energy grid meet unprecedented increases in demand from a more electrified economy. We’re delivering clean, reliable and resilient electricity to customers while keeping bills low, and we’re always looking for opportunities to use new technologies to benefit our customers.”

Don Reeves, senior vice president at Itron, added: “Xcel Energy is an innovator in adopting and deploying systems that are ready for the increase in DERs. We turn these customer-owned devices into grid assets, which is crucial for an electrified future. Itron’s aggregator DERMS can lay the foundation for autonomous management of DERs, when used with distributed intelligence, to provide real-time visibility into the grid edge. This uses back-office analytics combined with DI edge computing that operates on a customer’s Itron electric meter directly. DI can connect to and coordinate with the customer’s DER, such as battery storage, to continuously take advantage of stored energy in near real-time to protect customer and grid assets autonomously, which is an industry first.”

Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio manages three million DER devices for 30 utilities across the USA.

Itron (www.itron.com) is a specialist in energy, water, smart city, IIoT and intelligent infrastructure services for utilities, cities and society.

Xcel Energy (my.xcelenergy.com) is a regulated electric utility and natural gas delivery company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving more than 3.7 million electric users and 2.1 million natural gas users across parts of Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and New Mexico.