Tantalus has announced the successful implementation of the company’s first dispatchable conservation voltage regulation (DCVR) program. Having been selected to receive a smart grid pilot project grant from Tennessee Valley Authority, Morristown Utility Systems (MUS) is the first utility to use DCVR in conjunction with the Tantalus Utility Network TUNet to curtail its peak demand.
In a white paper titled “Dispatchable Conservation Voltage Regulation (DCVR) - a TUNet Demand Management Application,” Tantalus and MUS discuss the results of Morristown Utility Systems’ DCVR program, which it began testing last summer. Implementing a TUNet DCVR program will allow MUS to curtail load at TVA’s request, manage its own peak demand, automate existing demand management techniques, and use data to identify weaknesses and inefficiencies in the power grid, among other benefits.
“Tantalus’ voltage regulation application lets us reduce the peak electrical demand over time, while ensuring that all of our customers’ service voltages stay inside acceptable levels,” reports Jody Wigington, general manager of Morristown Utility Systems in Morristown, Tennessee.
Voltage regulation is a well-established technique deployed by utilities to decrease electrical demand during periods of peak energy use, to avoid overloading lines and to shift energy use to off-peak periods. Unlike traditional conservation voltage reduction (CVR), DCVR provides utilities with greater levels of automation and control by allowing real-time, flexible voltage adjustment during critical peak loads. In the case of MUS, a high-speed, low-latency, AMI-DNP3 interface delivers voltage sag and swell alarms to MUS’ SCADA system within seconds of any meter detecting a low voltage condition.
“Voltage regulation with closed-loop feedback from meters is one of those valuable extras that come from having a high-performance underlying communications network in your AMI system. Every meter in the Tantalus network is checking for low or high voltage conditions all the time so the system acts as a watchdog for power quality,” says Dave Kauffman, product manager with Tantalus.
Tantalus’ DCVR program is available as part of a full suite of TUNet applications for advanced utility data collection, management, monitor and control. The company will continue to expand the capabilities of this program with additional software integrations and refined automation functionality.
