Using the fiber optic network to communicate, the switches work together to isolate faults and re-route power when an outage occurs. EPB has a smart grid with more than 1,200 IntelliRupter switches installed on its 12-kilovolt distribution network and more than 200 smart switches on its 46-kilovolt transmission system. EPB was granted more than $111 million to get its smart grid up and running within about four years, or six years ahead of schedule, to serve every household and business in EPB's delivery area.ĮPB helped establish Chattanooga as "Gig City," where everyone has access to gigabyte-per-second Internet speeds and where high-speed Internet links open the door for an array of new electric grid improvements. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act adopted more than a decade ago, EPB secured the largest federal grant of any Tennessee utility from the stimulus bill to expedite the fiber optic buildout.
#Internet speed test epb install#
When EPB initially issued $170 million in municipal bonds to finance a fiber-optic network for a smarter electric grid in 2009, the city-owned utility estimated it would take 10 years to install the estimated 9,000 miles of fiber optic lines needed to cover EPB's service territory. The battery didn't meet expectations and has since been removed.ĭOE is now funding and will soon install new lithium-ion batteries for EPB to help the local power company better store and deploy energy from its own community solar project on Holtzclaw Avenue and to aid in creating a more robust network of microgrids for the solar array at the Chattanooga airport. Four years ago, DOE helped fund and install a 100-kilowatt vanadium redox battery at EPB's community solar facility near EPB's distribution center off of Holtzclaw Avenue. "But these microgrids give us a capacity to dispatch power across peaks to allow us to lower the cost of service to our customers and to generate power with more renewable sources like the sun or wind."Īs research projects, not every new technology works as well as initially hoped. "The electric grid today is the biggest and most complicated machine on the planet and it is highly centralized," said Jim Ingraham, vice president of strategic research at EPB. Controls and hardware solutions demonstrated on Commander give EPB and other utilities the ability to harness the load-balancing potential from regional network microgrids for a more resilient power grid. The testbed evaluates new hardware and controls before they are deployed on the live grid system. "EPB is helping us test these controls in some of the microgrids established and planned in their service area." "We are establishing a living emulation of various types of microgrids to see how they can be coordinated to build on a region's electricity reliability and resilience and even be used as backstop resources for the grid," said Madhu Sudhan Chinthavali, a group leader for Power Electronics Systems Integration at ORNL. Commander uses simulations to evaluate the performance of the grid technology under various scenarios, including disruptive weather events. ORNL researchers use artificial intelligence to analyze the data and create precise simulations of the grid.
DOE is also helping provide battery storage for another solar-powered microgrid being developed at the Chattanooga police and fire headquarters on Amnicola Highway. The 2-megawatt solar array and a 500-kilowatt battery storage facility at Chattanooga's airport is one of the microgrids being studied and evaluated for ways it can help to not only power the airport terminal but offer backup electricity when needed elsewhere. Commander receives real-time data from three research microgrids in EPB's service territory in and around Chattanooga using secured communications architecture. With their power generation and storage capabilities, distributed energy assets like microgrids can supply electricity to homes, businesses and factories. Within the Grid Research Integration and Deployment Center at the Hardin Valley campus of the ORNL, researchers have developed the Commander test bed to perform research on secure controls and hardware for local networked power grids called microgrids.
Chuck Fleischmann to help expand ORNL's presence in Chattanooga. "The Oak Ridge lab is a real jewel for our region and our industry and it's been a great partnership working with them," said former EPB Chairman Joe Ferguson, who worked with U.S. Over the past seven years since ORNL began working with EPB, the Chattanooga utility has helped in over $98 million of Department of Energy research projects.
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