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Alstom Grid Inc?s (ALSTOM Grid) Research Design and Development (RD&D) project, ?Microgrid RD&D and Testing for PIDC and PWD? was conducted in partnership with Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) in its role as owner?s representative and manager of a vibrant commercial and industrial community, involving critical loads in one of the nation?s largest unregulated, non-military electric distribution systems. PIDC needed to develop solutions to address the planned considerable growth in Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Combined Heat Plan (CHP), Renewables, Distributed Generation (DG), Demand Response (DR) and Storage. In supporting the corporate objective, PIDC needed a new class of control systems for achieving enhanced energy resilience of their critical infrastructure operation during adverse conditions together with carbon emission reduction and optimization of the overall system operation economics through system energy efficiency during normal and emergency operating conditions. Additionally, PIDC anticipated the need to support a new class of commercial agreements with tenants, such as those for Urban Outfitters, for guaranteed one hundred percent (100%) grid resilience and electric power supply in case of utility outage conditions.<
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The project was designed to address the challenges for the commercial & industrial (C&I) communities. But more importantly, the project included development of scalable and replicable solutions intended to target a multitude of the nation?s electric distribution communities. The project researched and developed a fully comprehensive prototype consisting of microgrid operation and control functions including islanding, synchronization and reconnection, protection, voltage, frequency, and power quality management, dispatch, and system resiliency. The project provided the foundation required to significantly enhance the overall national objectives set by the DOE for energy resilience, emission reduction and system energy efficiency improvement, including protection of critical infrastructure and public resources.<
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