Snohomish County PUD

Demand Response Applications for Utilities

As utilities work to incorporate Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) into the distribution grid, new communications and control schemes will need to be developed to fully realize the benefits of distributed generation resources and flexible electrical loads. Communication between devices and utilities are becoming more standardized, but most utilities do not have a framework in place to send price or dispatch signals to non-utility owned devices. Snohomish PUD was looking for this student tam to explore the challenges and feasibility of developing the hardware and software systems needed for the utility to begin utilizing customer-owned DERs for utility benefit. This team developed a simulated client–server environment modeling utility-issued control events and device responses. The system includes device identification, event scheduling, polling-based communication, and status reporting. Results demonstrate the feasibility of standardized DER communication while highlighting challenges in certificate management and interoperability, informing scalable real-world deployment.