KILLIAN TOBIN
CEO, Omega Grid
Killian’s company, Omega Grid developed a software solution that helps utilities manage new distributed energy resources coming onto the grid. This includes batteries, solar panels, and electric vehicles. He tested it out free of charge at Stone Edge Farm, as a result of a collaboration with Electricity de France (EDF), the largest utility in France and a huge nuclear provider world wide.
He explains that sometimes there is so much electricity on the grid that the wholesale price can be negative. Utilities can get paid to use the abundant electricity at this time. But the retail rates for electricity are fairly flat. So the utilities pay fluctuating rates and the customers have a steady rate. As more distributed resources come onto the grid, it becomes more difficult for utilities to absorb the fluctuation in the wholesale price.
“It's always been a one way street from a distribution utility to the customer and now they have to figure out how to manage all this new traffic on their grid, and they haven't had to allow people to sell electricity at the local level, it wasn't an option, but now it's becoming something that is not just an option but something that they have to support in order to maintain relevance.”
His technology connects the customer to the grid. The software determines the right price to pay for electricity or to pay people to use less electricity. “So if there's too much solar in one area or too much demand in another area, we change the price to help encourage either more use of electricity, or less use of electricity.”
The utility can give an incentive or price for reducing electricity. He is running a program with Burlington Electric Department (BED). BED is a small municipal utility. But they spend about $10 million a year on peaking charges. So they see this as a way to help reduce one of these big costs for their city. Using Omega Grid, Burlington customers will get a notice that if they turn their AC down 2 degrees they will be rewarded with money or another incentive. Much of this is tied to smart devices like Nest where the customer agrees to play and the utility controls the nest. They give customers a Smart plug and the Smart plug just turns off when they accept the incentive. Smart plugs cost $20 and the utility can get about $100 worth of energy savings just over the course of a year. So it's a pretty quick payback.
Killian’s work is similar to Adilson’s. Killian is signing a deal with Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and EDF to run a project to help incentivize electric vehicle charging in coordination with peak solar times. “If you can coordinate when electric vehicles charge with when the sun is shining, then you can add an order of magnitude more solar and more electric vehicles to the grid, if they're both controllable.”
In order to incentivize electric vehicle charging for ridesharing services, like Lyft or Uber, Omega will alert the drivers that there is a lot of solar on the system, and encourage them to pull over and charge. The incentive may be coupons that they can cash in immediately for lunch or dinner. Omega will also coordinate the charging of fleets. Electric school buses or fleets of EV’s will be encouraged to charge when the grid is getting a lot of electricity from solar.
“If you can encourage them to charge at the right time and in the future even discharge back onto the grid at the right time, then you have a potential to add an order of magnitude more electric vehicles and solar panels to the grid.”
Killian’s story is an example of international cooperation and how Stone Edge Farm helped get an idea out to market. Killian explains that it saved him years. His technology is an example of the new digital technologies being developed to help manage the grid.
“Stone Edge Farm is a unique micro gird. It's certainly the most scenic and one of the most complex micro grids in the world. And the fact that it's privately owned allows all sorts of new, innovative technology to be tested and deployed there in a very quick, innovative way. And so I think when folks like the CEO of EDF come to California and they come to the Bay Area they want to experience just all the new things that are being tried and tested out here, and