An Overview of Distributed Energy Resources Management System Guidelines and Functional Coverage

Distributed Energy Resource (DER) coordination and management is required in order to compensate for effects imposed by the development of distributed generation. Distributed Energy Resources Management System (DERMS) is a solution able to aggregate and optimize DERs while capturing their full value by allowing novel capabilities and delivery of grid services at the distribution level. However, pilot implementation of this relatively novel concept has shown improvements in technology and standardization must still evolve. This paper discusses the guidelines for DERMS recommendations, communications and functionalities. Special attention is given to the draft standard IEEE P2030.11 functional specifications and its coverage in recent projects. Lessons learned from projects demonstrates that resource coordination and grid services provisioning are efficient methods for achieving network optimization goals, but there is still improvement to realize secure and reliable communication between DERMS platforms and DER assets for a robust operation enabling more complex functionalities.