Dive Brief:
- Colorado-based Spirae has launched a new technology platform aimed at helping grid operators with significant distributed generations resources in their territory to better integrate the new systems.
- The company has built an operating system to manage distributed generation and to streamline design and configuration of assets from small microgrids to utility-scale resources, Greentech Media reports.
- Company officials say the underlying philosophy is simple: utilities must stop seeing distributed generation as "one-off" resources and instead view the system holistically, as an array of resources to be managed.
Dive Insight:
Spirae was founded in 2002 and since then has worked on a wide array of projects from microgrids to utility pilots. The company's new Wave platform is aimed at integrating the broad array of distributed resources in a manner that manages them seamlessly and quickly.
Greentech Media reports on the launch of the Wave platform, with Spirae CEO Sunil Cherian saying "with all of these distributed assets, the tendency is to treat them as one-off devices ... We need to get past that model and get to virtualization of assets.”
Spirae's web site says Wave "gives developers a powerful tool to reduce design and operational costs by optimizing system sizing" and can allows users to dynamically set asset and system constraints, and system objectives and capabilities. The company said its system uses open communications with standard protocols to help ensure systems with portfolios of distributed resources "are fully compliant with grid codes."
