With GCN Software, News Travels Fast on the Grid

Green Charge Networks (GCN), a Brooklyn-based provider of smart grid and energy storage solutions, has launched GridSynergy—a software platform that provides real-time status updates on grid assets; as well as actionable recommendations for load relief and subsequent execution of load relief. This solution enables utilities to avoid hardware upgrades—spending three to 10 times less on grid maintenance.

Nationwide in the United States, the cost of upkeep for electric grid runs into hundreds of billions of dollars.

GridSynergy enables electric utilities to:

• Extract knowledge from multiple, combined data sets via its proprietary analytics and data mining software
• Use current assets to their maximum efficiency
• Discover new patterns and usage trends—visualized on a real-time, easy-to-understand dashboard
• Predict potential future and current grid hot spots and implement immediate corrective measures
• Reduce short-term stress on the grid
• Cost-effectively defer or reduce long-term need for capital investments; such as transformers, substations, or even new power plant
• Reduce operating expenses; and monitor, measure, and verify savings.

By analyzing and mining data pulled from historic usage records, smart meters, and other sources, GridSynergy’s predictive modelling may prevent or curtail mass blackouts or brownouts.

Vic Shao, GCN's chief technology officer, responsible for development of GridSynergy, explained, "The commercial energy consumption market totals $40 billion annually …. Utilities will be faced with huge construction expenditures, if they rely on hardware versus software solutions to meet the growing demand."

GridSynergy also enables small commercial players, which usually would not meet the minimum energy pledge, to enroll in demand response programs by aggregating the load of multiple facilities.

GCN currently provides three software modules:

• GridSynergy Intelligence is a robust and scalable processing engine that distills intelligence from large data sets and provides load flow analysis. The engine renders visualizations and real-time options for relieving loads at overstressed utility assets; with attention to available curtailment and/or generation capacity, such as demand response assets and storage systems.
• GridSynegy Execution is a network operation center console that manages available smart grid assets by constantly monitoring the grid. It executes curtailment or generation commands, and relays the acknowledgement back to the utility operator.
• Grid Synergy (News - Alert) Client is an embedded software package that powers the smart controller technology installed at the facility—providing an inexpensive alternative to utility service upgrades for the building owner. In addition, GridSynergy Client offers three software upgrades—Green Station energy storage, SmartGrid-enabled EV chargers, and a building automation system—that further minimize service upgrades.

"GridSynergy was developed based on four years of hands-on research of the grid and electric demand," commented GCN President and Chief Operating Officer Ryan Prosser. "It provides a much-needed solution to a real-world problem for utilities across the country."