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Itron and Schneider Electric announced that they are collaborating to help improve energy and grid management for utilities as homeowners and businesses increasingly adopt distributed energy resources (DER), such as rooftop solar, battery energy storage, electric vehicles and microgrids, at the grid edge. In a stepwise approach, the companies will integrate their intelligent grid and distributed energy resource (DER) management solutions to help further digitalize the demand and supply of electricity.
Electricity demand is rapidly increasing due to the electrification of everything from transportation to heating. By 2050, the U.S. grid's capacity will have nearly doubled compared to 2022, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and in Canada, grid capacity is projected to reach 226 GW by 2050.
With more DER comes more data generated at the grid’s edge, and an opportunity to further harness, aggregate and analyze that data to produce actionable insights. Utilities can further leverage this awareness to better optimize grid planning and operations by integrating Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence solutions and Schneider Electric’s Digital Grid solutions to help increase grid capacity while deferring infrastructure investments. Itron and Schneider Electric are working on a number of integrated use cases that will deliver additional value across asset management, grid planning and operations, and DER management, and will work with utilities to integrate their solutions.
Modern utilities can already utilize Itron’s industrial IoT (IIoT) network solution that collects usage and status data from the point of service. By bringing together distributed and centralized intelligence, grid operators can gain additional situational awareness and real-time insights, including key measurements, notifications, and events, such as downed wires. With this collaboration, utilities can extend energy orchestration to behind-the-meter assets, enabling better proactive management of grid constraints when and where needed. Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence solutions integrate grid analytics and edge DERMS to help further enhance visibility, such as high resolution, real-time transformer level insights and control with Schneider Electric’s Digital Grid solutions. EcoStruxure ADMS allows grid operators to leverage more enhanced outage management capabilities to more efficiently detect and respond to faults, helping to mitigate risks from climate impacts, such as wildfires. Grid to Prosumer DERMS can help utilities to further maximize value from DER with an end-to-end approach to grid optimization, flexibility management, and prosumer engagement that supports energy transition.
More sophisticated grid edge intelligence solutions also help to support behind-the-meter intelligence, which is essential as more homes and commercial properties are equipped with DER solutions, such as solar and electric vehicles. Bloomberg NEF projects 167 million homes and 23 million businesses to be solar users by 2050. These intelligent assets can then be leveraged in demand response programs that reward owners for easing their usage during times of peak demand. With solutions, such as Schneider Electric's Home and Itron’s Distributed Intelligence-enabled Optimizer solutions, prosumers can gain better control of their electricity supply as they produce and consume energy, while utilities can further optimize the grid to meet evolving needs.